Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-10-29
Ye(istellaueuns &eadiug.
HISTORY OF TOBACCO.
from the Boston Globe.

HISTORY OF TOBACCO.
from the Boston Globe.
In the first week of November, 1892, two
sailors were sent by Columbus to make a
brief exploration on the island of Cuba
They brought back to the ship the most
marvellous and Incredible report 1--WE
found the natives" they said, "carrying
lighted firebrands with them and putting
smoke from their mouths and noses."
The investigation which followed this
extraordinary statement disclosed the ma
ture of the "firebrands." They were made
of the leaves of an unfamiliar herb, rolled
up in the dried inner leaves of maize or
Indian corn. It soon turned out, too, con-
trary to the theory which naturally occur
red to the Europeans to account for this
strange custom, that it was neither meth
cd of perfuming the person nor part of
barberous religious ceremony, but practice
whose sole excuse for being lay in the SIM
pie satisfaction and pleasure of its perform
ance. -
In this matured and advanced stage Of
its existence the cigar makes its first ap-
pearance in history, and it is to be noted
that the changes which have been made in
it during the nearly 400 years that have
since elapsed have been more in the details
of the manufacture than in the nature of the
article itself.
Almost simultaneously with the discov-
ery of the cigar, the Spaniards were made
aware of another and still more curious
method of extracting the virtues from the
seductive herb. The custom was first OBJ
served among the natives of the island of
San Domingo. Upon the live embers of
wood fire they cast the leaves of the
tobacco plant. The long end of a hollow
tube dividing into branches at the top, shap-
ed like letter with an extended stem,
was placed in the smoke. The fumes were
inhaled through the branches held in the
mouth or nOstrils.
Such was the primitive pipe, still in use
among some South American tribes.
The natives gave this novel instrument
this name-tabaco. The Spaniards con-
founding the name of the weed with that of
the pipe through which it was smoked,
transmitted the error to future generations,
and we have continued to perpetuate it.
The Spaniards still preserve the original
spelling. The Italians add an extra c.
tabacco The poles call it tabaca. The
SWedes and Danes shorten it to tobak. The
Germans, Dutch and Russians spell it tabak
and the French tabac. 1t is said that the
Tartars made use of the three words ia ba
|
came into use in England. There is an
old story, so common that everybody is ia
miliar with ii, that "the word tobacco is
DERIVED FROM TOBACCO,
an island of the Lesser Antilles, where the
plant was discovered" This is told and
believed with confidence as if the island
had borne this name through all time, and
Columbus had only to inquire to find out
what it was. The fact as nearly as we can
decide it, is that Columbus gave the island
this name because he fancied its outline
bore a resemblance to the Y pipe of the
natives of San Domingo.
To the use of tobacco, which has become
so general throughout the world, we are
indebted to the uncivilzed inhabitants
of the North American continent. BY a
process of natural selection the inferior
races vanished like smoke at the approach
of the superior races, but they left with US
as parting gift memento which seems
likely to last as long as any OF our instltu-
tions. 1t is a curious fact, and one which
is probably not paralleled in history, that a
race of savages should impress upon the
civilized nations Il practice originating
among themselves and exclusively their
own. Evidently there was some void in
the civilized heart waiting to be filled. 1t
required no long process of initiation or
|
sight, and sprung into its place in popular
! favor at a single bound. A custom so spon-
taneously accepted in spite of the most
rigorous legislative attempts to suppress it,
so steady in its growth and so universal
in its ultimate extent, must indeed have
had something stronger to recommend it
than the mere spirit Of imitation or the
force of novelty.
At the period of our first knowledge of it
the tobacco plant seems to have been spread
generally over the southern part of the
South American continent and the Islands
at the mouth of the Gulf Of Mexico. Ac-
cording to Humboldt it was largely cultiya-
ted by the ancient Mexicans as it was by
the native aborigines. 1t was found then,
as we find it now, varying greatly in char
acter according to the climate and the ma
ture of the soil in which itgrew. 1t seemed
then as it does now, particularly adapted to
Southern parallels, but it is even at this day
occasionally found as weed as far north as
New York State, relic of the cultivation
by the native red man.
| Unfortunately, future generations are not
permitted to record the name of the illus
trious discoverer of the virtues of the tobac-
co plant. For want of better evidence we
are obliged to accept the testimony of the
Susquehanna Indians, who told the Chris
tian missionaries that it was of divine orr
gina belief, by the way, which seems to
have been pretty generally INDUCED in by
the aborigines. "Some hunters of our
tribe" they said, "having killed and cooked
deer, observed a figure like that of
young woman, really spirit, on the hill
side, and thinking that she might be suffer-
ing from hunger, offered her some venison.
She partook of it, was pleased with its flavor
and said: Your kindness shall be rewarded.
Come here thirteen moons hence and you
shall find it, We did so, and found maize
growing where her right hand had touched
the ground, where her left, kidney-beans,
and where she sat we found tobacco" And
undoubtedly this is just as authentic as
some other "historical" data which are
much more widely believed.
In this case, at any rate, we shall be OBJ.
liged to take things as they are, without in
dulging in our common weakness of trying
to account for them. 1t is certain only that
the savage was found by the white man
with the pipe in his mouth, and under his
care the culture of tobacco had already
reached an advanced stage. The first Euro
pean ship that touched the shores of Ameri
ca carried back with them the samples Of
the curious herb that grew in the new coun-
try. We cannot, however, ascertain the
date of the introduction Of tobacco into Eu-
rope previous to 1900, when Hernandez de
Toledo, Spanish physician, who had been
commissioned by Philip II. to examine the