Tabaco and NA

[Tam]

This is an off the wall question but has been bugging me for years . After old rocks posted that pipe piece and Greg left the link I went to it . Then I saw Toms . I have gone over this but when I read the part about the Eoropeans watching the Fl
NA smoking cigar like leaves of tabaco it kind of floors me .
What dows anyone think got them started smoking for . Or how did they even know to do this is more my thought . I think of them doing what it took to survive and don’t see them choking on tabaco .In Africa they chew Beattle nut and get high . Trust me I have walked in a shop there where everyone is spaced chewing it with black teeth .
what are anyone’s thoughts . I know it’s a pesty question but it seems weird .

[Kentucky point]

I have thought about it too. I know that they smoked other things as well. I am sure some was recreational, but most was for ceremonies. What else did they smoke specifically? Just for curiosity's sake. I refuse to even think about trying anything like that! :-)

[Andy W.]

The inner bark of slippery elm for one thing.

[Scorpion68]

I would imagine the introduction of a tobacco like product would have been through medicinal use. Lots of the drugs we use today came from NA's and their use of plant material as medicine. But many hallucination drugs were used during spiritual ceremonies. When I was a youngster we used to smoke corn silk and also catalpa pods. Don't remember a lot about them except that the taste was nothing like tobacco.

[Hoss]

Tobbaco is medicinal and also a sacred plant. The smoking of the pipe and the passing of it is a tradtional sharing. But they did not just smoke it they also used it to smudge. The many nations of Natives within the Americas had cultural differences. Some similar but some very different. What some used the smoke for others did not. I think it is easy to see how it came into use because anyone who has built a fire will look for dry leaves to get it started. Tobbaco has a nice fragrance. Not modern cigarettes but the smell of tobbaco can have a soothing effect.

[Tam]

Didn’t know that Matt cigarettes smell to me .

[tomclark]

"Tobbaco has a nice fragrance". I think that's how it got started. Stuff thrown on the fire and they thought, "Hmmm that smells interesting, good!" Many substances were smoked along with tobacco or instead of it. Kinnikinnick was a blend up in the northeast or varying ingredients.

Las Casas vividly described how the first scouts sent by Columbus into the interior of Cuba found

men with half-burned wood in their hands and certain herbs to take their smokes, which are some dry herbs put in a certain leaf, also dry, like those the boys make on the day of the Passover of the Holy Ghost; and having lighted one part of it, by the other they suck, absorb, or receive that smoke inside with the breath, by which they become benumbed and almost drunk, and so it is said they do not feel fatigue. These, muskets as we will call them, they call tabacos. I knew Spaniards on this island of Española who were accustomed to take it, and being reprimanded for it, by telling them it was a vice, they replied they were unable to cease using it. I do not know what relish or benefit they found in it.^[7]

[Tam]

Very interesting . This actually explains a lot . I can see the fire going and them inhaling the pungent smells and wanting to intensify it by burning it to inhale .

[Kentucky point]

A lot of people around here smoke. If they happen to do it near me, I have to walk away because I can't take the smell. Modern day cigarettes have over 600 ingredients, and when burned, they create over 7,000 chemicals. The Native Americans never did that. They had only, I guess you could say, "the good pure stuff". Nicotine is what makes today's cigarettes so addictive. If you smoked just plain tobacco leaves, would it be addictive? Although there aren't any chemicals, it still won't be healthy for you. Your still inhaling smoke.

[Kentucky point]

And it wouldn't smell the same, would it?