Smoking has been practiced in one
form or another since ancient times. Tobacco and various
hallucinogenic drugs were smoked all over the Americas as early
as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals. Many ancient civilizations,
such as the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese, burnt incense as a
part of religious rituals, as did the Israelites and the later
Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. In Ancient Greece,
smoke was used as healing practice and the Oracle of Delphi made
prophecies while intoxicated by inhaling natural gases from a
natural bore hole. The Greek historian Herodotos also wrote that
the Scythians used cannabis for ritual purposes and, to some
degree, pleasure. He describes how Scythians burned hemp seed:
“ At once it begins to smoke, giving off a vapor unsurpassed by
any vapor-bath one could find in Greece. The Scythians enjoy it
so much that they howl with pleasure.
Smoking in the Americas probably had its origins in the
incense-burning ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for
pleasure or as a social tool. The Maya employed it in classical
times (at least from the 10th century) and the Aztecs included
it in their mythology. The Aztec goddess Cihuacoahuatl had a
body consisting of tobacco and the priests that performed human
sacrifices wore tobacco gourds as symbols of divinity. Even
today certain Tzeltal Maya sacrifice 13 calabashes of tobacco at
New Year. The smoking of tobacco and various other
hallucinogenic drugs was used to achieve trances and to come
into contact with the spirit world. Reports from the first
European explorers and conquistadors to reach the Americas tell
of rituals where native priests smoked themselves into such high
degrees of intoxication that it is unlikely that the rituals
were limited to just tobacco. No concrete evidence of exactly
what was smoked exists, but the most probable theory is that the
tobacco used was much stronger, consumed in extreme amounts or
that it was mixed with any number of other, unknown,
psychoactive drugs. In North America the most common form of
smoking was in pipes, which today are best known as the peace
pipes offered both to other tribes and later European settlers
as a gesture of goodwill and diplomacy. In the Caribbean, Mexico
and Central and South America, early forms of cigarettes,
smoking reeds or cigars were the most common smoking tools. Only
in modern times has the use of pipes become fairly widespread.
Smoking is depicted in engravings and on various types of
pottery as early as the 9th century, but it is not known whether
it was limited to just the upper class and priests.
By the time Europeans arrived in the Americas in the late 15th
century there was widespread use of tobacco smoking as a
recreational activity. At the banquets of Aztec nobles, the meal
would commence by passing out fragrant flowers and smoking tubes
for the dinner guests. At the end of the feast, which would last
all night, the remaining flowers, smoking tubes and food would
be given as a kind of alms to old and poor people who had been
invited to witness the social occasion, or it would be rewarded
to the servants.
The tobacco revolution >>
|
History
1. The tobacco revolution
2. Europe
3. The Middle East
4. East Asia
5. South Asia
6. Sub-Saharan Africa
7. Opium smoking
8. The social stigma
Physiology
1. Smoking substances
Smoking
tools and paraphernalia
Social effects
1. Public health and
crime
Smoking in culture
1. Art
2. Film
3. Literature
|
