Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1889-07-20
WHO INVENTED sMoKINa7
Reasons for Thinking That the Habit 1
Not of American Origin.

Reasons for Thinking That the Habit ID
Not of American Origin.
1t has been generally supposed that
the uses OF tobacco we're not known
outside OF America and its islands be.
fore the discovery of the western
world. While convincing proof to the
contrary has not been obtained, the ex-
plorations of recent years have raised
the question whether the tobacco habit
in the fifteenth century was not far
more widely prevalent than has been
believed 1t is learned that among
many OF the Pacific islands the natives
used tobacco long before they were
visited by the white men, and there
is no tradition among them OF a time
when their fathers did not understand
the culture and use of tho tobacco
plant. Throughout inner Africa also
the use of tobacco is universally known,
and there is every reason to believe
that some of the varieties Of nicotiana
in common use are Indigenous For
all we know to the contrary, the savages
of central Africa, who were quite un-
known at the time Columbus discovered
America were putting their pipes long
before he made himself famous.
There is no doubt that the discovery
of American tobacco had considerable
influence upon the tobacco habit in Az
RIGA, if it did not actually introduce it.
Our common Virginia tobacco was car
ried far up the Nile to equatorial Afri-
cao long before white men penetrated
that region. Schweinfurth was the first
to discover that this imported plant is
in use among several of the Bahr el
Ghasal and Welle- Makua tribes; and it
is a curious fact that the savages who
use this exotic have no native name for
it. Each tribe has its own name for the
native variety of tobacco, but the ap-
pellations the Africans apply to the
imported plant show Enthusiastically that
they are derived, one and all, from the
word tobacco.
So far as this large region, at least,
is indebted to America for an improved
quality OF the weed, the obligation
seems to be acknowledged in the names
given to the article. But the indigen-
GUS varieties are far more prevalent,
and are largely used even where Vir-
ginia tobacco is cultivated. And since
the foreign source of the exotic has been
so easily discovered in the languages of
the people, it seems not unreasonable to
suppose that in the greater regions to
which it has not extended, and where
no foreign influence is discernible, the
smoking habit had an independent ori-
gin.
1t is not at all certain that the whole
white race has prior claim even upon
the invention of the cigar. In all the
parts of New Guinea, the largest island
in the world, that have yet been visited,
tobacco is cultivated, and in some oil
these districts the humble pipe con-
tributes nothing to the enjoyment ol
the weed and is not even known. DR..
Maclay saw natives with crude-looking
cigars in their mouths who had never
seen white man before, and thought
he had dropped from the sky. DIR.
Fissch, who some years later explored
the coast for hundreds of miles, says
the natives of the whole northeast
coast of New Guinea, though inveterate
smokers, had never heard of pipe,
and returned those which he gave them
as articles for which they had no use.
He says they roll the partly dried
leaves into rude cigar, and, not being
blessed with Havana wrappers, they
tie around their cigar large green
leaf from a tree. Doubtless the vilest
weed sold on the Bowery are superior
to those products of Papaun ingenuity,
which hold fire so poorly that live
coal is always kept at hand to revivify
them. But they suit the native taste,
and the people seem to regard those
who draw tobacco smoke through q
pipestem as belonging to an inferior
order of human beings. IN. Y. Sun.
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