manner, will frequently produce complete giddiness and intoxication. The Indians accordingly make use of various herbs to mix with and dilute the tobacco, such as the leaf of the bearberry or the cranberry, the inner bark of the red willow (Cornus sericea), and of the dogwood (Cornus alternifolia), to all of which the Indian word kinikinik is generally applied; and the leaves of the winterberry, which receives the name of pahgezegun.1 The cranberry and winterberry leaves are prepared by passing them through the top of the flame, or more leisurely drying them over the fire, without allowing them to burn. Among the Creeks, the Chocktaws, and other Indians in the south, the leaves of the sumach, prepared in a similar manner, answer the like purpose. The leaf of the winterberry or teaberry (Coltheria procumbens) has a pleasant aroma, which may have had some influence on its selection. The Indians of the North-west ascribe to it the further property of giving them wind, and enabling them to hold out longer in running. A similar procedure is followed in the use of ardent spirits; and it is a frequent subject of remark by those who have had much intercourse with the Indians, how very small a quantity of whisky suffices to intoxicate them, although they dilute it largely in order to prolong the pleasure they derive from drinking. The custom of increasing the action of the tobacco fumes on the nervous system by expelling them through the nostrils, though now chiefly confined to the Indians of this continent, appears to have been universally prac a 1 The literal significance of kinikinik is "he mixes;" kinikangun is “ mixture;" and the words are applied by the Indians not to the diluent alone, but to the tobacco and diluents when mixed and prepared for use. So also pahgezegun is "anything mixed," and may be rendered, something to mix with tobacco. When, however, the Indian's supply of tobacco is exhausted, he frequently smokes the leaves of the bearberry or cranberry alone. tised when the smoking of tobacco was introduced into the Old World. It has been perpetuated in Europe by those who had the earliest opportunities of acquiring the native custom. The Spaniard still expels the smoke through his nostrils, though using a light tobacco, and in such moderation as to render the influence of the narcotic sufficiently innocuous. The Greek sailors in the Levant very frequently retain the same practice, with less moderation in its use. Melville also describes the Sandwich Islanders, among whom tobacco is of such recent introduction, as having adopted the Indian custom, whether from imitation or by a natural savage instinct towards excess; and evidence is not wanting to prove that such was the original practice of the English smoker. Paul Hentzner, in his Journey into England, in 1598, among other novelties describes witnessing at the playhouse the practice, as then newly borrowed from the Indians of Virginia: "Here," he says, "and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking of tobacco, and in this manner: they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the further end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and putting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils, like funnels, along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion of the head." The minute size of the most ancient of the British tobacco-pipes, which has led to their designation as those of the elves or fairies, may therefore be more certainly ascribed to the mode of using the tobacco, which rendered the contents of the smallest of them a sufficient dose, than to economic habits in those who indulged in the novel and costly luxury. This opinion is further confirmed by observing that the same miniature characteristics mark various specimens of antique native pipes of a peculiar class found in Canada, and which appear to be such as in all probability were in use, and furnished the models of the English clay pipes of the sixteenth century. But if the date thus assigned for the earliest English clay pipes be the true one, it has an important bearing on a much wider question; and as a test of the value to be attached to popular traditions, may suggest the revision of more than one archæological theory based on the trustworthiness of such evidence. A contributor to Notes and Queries1 quotes some doggrel lines printed in the Harleian Miscellany in 1624, where, speaking of the good old times of King Harry the Eighth, smoking is thus ludicrously described as a recent novelty: "Nor did that time know To puff and to blow, As you do at this day, And a leafe in a hole!" These lines are ascribed in the original to Skelton, who died in 1529; and by a course of reasoning which seems to run somewhat in a circle, it is assumed that they cannot be his, because tobacco was not introduced into England "till 1565 or thereabouts." Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, ascribes its introduction to Drake in 1586; while the old keep at Cawdor, already referred to, with its sculptured reynard and his pipe, would carry it back to 1510, and by implication still nearer the fifteenth century. So peculiar a custom as smoking would no doubt at first be chiefly confined to such as had acquired a taste for it in the countries from whence it was borrowed; and until its more general diffusion had created a demand for tobacco, as well as for the pipe required for its use, the smoker who had not acquired an Indian pipe along with the "Indian weed" would have to depend on chance, or his own ingenuity, for the mate 1 Notes and Queries, vol. vii. p. 230. tised when the smoking of tobacco was introduced into the Old World. It has been perpetuated in Europe by those who had the earliest opportunities of acquiring the native custom. The Spaniard still expels the smoke through his nostrils, though using a light tobacco, and in such moderation as to render the influence of the narcotic sufficiently innocuous. The Greek sailors in the Levant very frequently retain the same practice, with less moderation in its use. Melville also describes the Sandwich Islanders, among whom tobacco is of such recent introduction, as having adopted the Indian custom, whether from imitation or by a natural savage instinct towards excess; and evidence is not wanting to prove that such was the original practice of the English smoker. Paul Hentzner, in his Journey into England, in 1598, among other novelties describes witnessing at the playhouse the practice, as then newly borrowed from the Indians of Virginia: "Here," he says, "and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking of tobacco, and in this manner: they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the further end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder, and putting fire to it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils, like funnels, along with it plenty of phlegm and defluxion of the head.” The minute size of the most ancient of the British tobacco-pipes, which has led to their designation as those of the elves or fairies, may therefore be more certainly ascribed to the mode of using the tobacco, which rendered the contents of the smallest of them a sufficient dose, than to economic habits in those who indulged in the novel and costly luxury. This opinion is further confirmed by observing that the same miniature characteristics mark various specimens of antique native pipes of a peculiar class found in Canada, and which appear to be such as in all probability were in use, and furnished the models of the English clay pipes of the sixteenth century. But if the date thus assigned for the earliest English clay pipes be the true one, it has an important bearing on a much wider question; and as a test of the value to be attached to popular traditions, may suggest the revision of more than one archæological theory based on the trustworthiness of such evidence. A contributor to Notes and Queries1 quotes some doggrel lines printed in the Harleian Miscellany in 1624, where, speaking of the good old times of King Harry the Eighth, smoking is thus ludicrously described as a recent novelty : "Nor did that time know To puff and to blow, And a leafe in a hole !" These lines are ascribed in the original to Skelton, who died in 1529; and by a course of reasoning which seems to run somewhat in a circle, it is assumed that they cannot be his, because tobacco was not introduced into England "till 1565 or thereabouts." Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, ascribes its introduction to Drake in 1586; while the old keep at Cawdor, already referred to, with its sculptured reynard and his pipe, would carry it back to 1510, and by implication still nearer the fifteenth century. So peculiar a custom as smoking would no doubt at first be chiefly confined to such as had acquired a taste for it in the countries from whence it was borrowed; and until its more general diffusion had created a demand for tobacco, as well as for the pipe required for its use, the smoker who had not acquired an Indian pipe along with the "Indian weed" would have to depend on chance, or his own ingenuity, for the mate 1 Notes and Queries, vol. vii. p. 230. |