The history of tobacco

Down the centuries, human beings have enjoyed the smoke from many different plants. Herodotus tells us how Persian horsemen threw certain leaves on the fire and intoxicated themselves from the smoke. And when Pliny wrote his Historia Naturalis of c.70 AD, he recommended inhaling the smoke from coltsfoot as a cure for a cough.
 
Native Americans
The Native North and South Americans introduced tobacco to the Europeans. Tobacco had almost cult status; in certain tribes the enjoyment of tobacco was regarded as such a great pleasure and honour that it was reserved for the tribal chiefs and priests. The growing of tobacco was therefore often accompanied by rituals.

The Chow Indians, for example, created special tobacco societies, whose members had the monopoly on sowing and growing tobacco. The condition for membership was that you had to have experienced a revelation in dreams connected with tobacco. If you were not so privileged, you could still be voted in by someone who had witnessed a vision of tobacco. To the Chow Indians, the tobacco harvest was a prediction of the tribe’s survival prospects. So it is not surprising that sowing, tending and harvesting the tobacco crop was accompanied by rituals, dancing and festivities.
 
Snuff, chewing tobacco or ambil
Tobacco was used in many forms, depending on tribal traditions; either as snuff which was sniffed up into the nose through a straw, as chewing tobacco, or as ambil – a thick black tobacco liquid which was smeared on the insides of the lips.
 
From America to the rest of the world
It was Christopher Columbus who brought home with him from the New World ”God’s gift to mantals” as the native Americans called tobacco. But history reveals that Columbus himself underestimated tobacco’s possibilities since he makes only a brief reference to tobacco in his diary.
 
Tobacco started its life in Europe as a medicinal plant, side by side with other such plants in Lisbon’s herb gardens. But before long the tobacco plant was standing around in many gardens across Europe. Sailors who voyaged to and from America played their part in spreading knowledge of the enjoyment of tobacco in Europe’s sea ports. And from there it was not far to other ports in the rest of the world.
 
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