Chapter 4 History of tobacco in chronological order

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History of tobacco in chronological order: 1500

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On Jacques Cartier's second voyage to North America in 1535, he was offered

tobacco by the indigenous people he met when he arrived at the island of Montreal.

Cartier described this in his diary: "In Hochelaga, at the head of the river in Canada,

grows a certain herb which is stocked in large quantities by the natives during the

summer season, and on which they set great value. Men alone use it, and after drying

it in the sun they carry it around their neck wrapped up in the skin of a small animal,

like a sac, with a hollow piece of stone or wood. When the spirit moves them, they

pulverize this herb and place it at one end, lighting it with a fire brand, and draw on the

other end so long that they fill their bodies with smoke until it comes out of their mouth

and nostrils as from a chimney. They claim it keeps them warm and in good health.

They never travel without this herb."

Smoke and Mirrors, p. 30

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"A recurrent theory in the history of the use of tobacco is that its use is compulsive and

similar to other forms of drug abuse. In the Americas the inability of the Indians to

abstain from tobacco raised problems for the Catholic Church. The Indians insisted on

smoking even in church, as they had been accustomed to doing in their own places of

worship. In 1575 a church council issued an order forbidding the use of tobacco in

churches throughout the whole Spanish America. Soon, however, the missionary

priests themselves were using tobacco so frequently that it was necessary to make

laws to prevent even them from using tobacco during worship."

Nicotine, p. 83

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Thursday, July 06, 2000

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