Holy Smoke: Tobacco Use Among Native American Tribes in North America![Sample our Health and Social Care journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5938/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Health-Social-Care.jpg"})
Abstract
The use of tobacco by Native Americans in North America seems to have ancient origins and significant spiritual meaning. This article reviews archeological and anthropological data about the use of tobacco and its sacred significance.
RÉSUMÉ
L'usage du tabac par les Amérindiens en Amérique du Nord semble avoir des origines très anciennes et importante signification spirituelle. Cet article passe en revue les données archéologiques et anthropologiques sur l'usage du tabac et de sa signification sacrée.
RESUMEN
El consumo de tabaco por los americanos nativos de América del Norte parece tener orígenes muy antiguos y su significado espiritual importante. Este artículo revisa los datos arqueológicos y antropológicos sobre el uso del tabaco y su car´cter sagrado.
Notes
2 The Boucher site is a prehistoric cemetery located in Vermont, east of Lake Champlain along the Missisquoi River. Boucher is characteristic of the Middlesex complex, an Early Woodland manifestation found in New York, New England, and southeastern Canada.
3 Ruby Modesto was a Desert Cahuilla medicine woman who passed traditional knowledge to younger generations.
4 A desert dwelling Native American tribe who lived in what is now Southern California.
5 The Topatopa Mountains are a mountain range in Ventura County, California, north of Santa Paula. They are part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California. The range lies in an east-west direction northeast of the community of Ojai, and west of the Sespe Condor Sanctuary. The range reaches an elevation of 6,716 feet (2,047 m) at Hines Peak.
6 The Menominee are part of the Algonquian-language family of North America, of which several tribes were located around the Great Lakes. They were one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin, and had a territory of 10 million acres.
7 In 1947, Black Elk invited the writer Joseph Epes Brown to visit him at his home in Manderson, South Dakota. Black Elk narrated to Brown details about Lakota ceremonies, including the Sun Dance. The result was The Sacred Pipe, published in 1953. These ceremonies were no longer being performed and it seems evident that Black Elk wanted them recorded before he died.
8 “White Buffalo Calf Woman can be further identified as Wohpe. The Lakotas’ cosmogony presents Wohpe as the reconciler of the gods to each other and of the gods to men. She is the cosmic harmonizer, a fundamental force for peace and reconciliation.” (Melody, 1980, p. 11)
9 Black Elk describes this ceremony as follows: “By keeping the soul according to the proper rites, as given us by the White Buffalo Cow Woman, one so purifies it that it and the Spirit become one, and it is thus able to return to the place where it was born –Wakan-Tanka (the Great Spirit or the Great Holy) –and need not wander about the earth as is the case with the souls of bad people; further the keeping of the soul helps us to remember death and also Wakan-Tanka, who is above all dying.” (p. 11)
10 Black Elk describes this as follows: “The rite of onikare (purification) utilizes all the Powers of the universe: the earth and the things that grow from the earth, water, fire, and air. The water represents the Thunder-beings who come fearfully but bring goodness, for the steam which comes from the rocks, within which is fire, is frightening, but it purifies us that we might live as Wakan-Tanka wills, and He may even send us a vision if we are very pure.” (p. 31)
11 Black Elk describes this rite as follows: “The ‘Crying for a Vision’ ritual, like the purification rites, was used long before the coming of the sacred pipe. This way of praying is very important, and indeed it is the center of our religion, for from it we have received many good things … . Every man can cry for a vision, or ‘lament’; and in the old days we all –men and women –‘lamented’ all the time. What is received through the ‘lamenting’ is determined by the character of the person who does it, for it is only those people who are very qualified who receive a great vision … and who give strength and health to our nation.” (p. 44)
12 Black Elk describes this rite as follows: The wiwanyag wachipi (dance looking at the sun) is one of our greatest rites and was first held many winters after our people received the sacred pipe from White Buffalo Cow Woman. It is held each year during the moon of fattening (June) or the moon of the cherries blackening (July), always at the same time when the moon is full … when the moon is full it is as if the eternal light of the Great Spirit were upon the whole world. (p. 67)
13 Black Elk describes this rite as follows: “In this rite we establish a relationship on earth, which is a reflection of the real relationship which always exists between man and Wakan-Tanka first, and before all else, so we should also love and establish closer relationships with our fellow men, even if they should be another nation than ours. In establishing and participating in this rite we are carrying out the will of the Great Spirit, for this is one of the seven rites which in the beginning the White Buffalo Cow Woman promised us.” (p. 101)
14 Black Elk describes this rite as follows: These rites are performed after the first menstrual period of a young woman. They are important because it is at this time that a young girl becomes a woman, and she must understand the meaning of this change and be instructed in the duties which she must now fulfill. She should realize that the change which has taken place in her is a sacred thing, for now she shall be as Mother Earth and be able to bear children, which should be brought up in a sacred manner.” (p. 116)
15 Black Elk describes this rite as follows: “There was until recently a game among our people which was played with a ball, four teams and four goals which were set up in the four quarters. But there are only a few of us today who remember that the game is sacred, or what the game was long ago when it was not really a game but one of our most important rites. This rite is the seventh and last sacred rite given us through a vision by Waken-Tanka. The game as it is played today represents the course of a man's life, which is spent trying to get the ball, for the ball represents Wakan-Tanka or the universe. In the game today it is very difficult to get the ball and score because the odds –which represent ignorance –are against you … in the original rite everybody was able to have the ball, and if you think about what the ball represents, you will see that there is much truth in it.” (pp. 127–128)
16 The A'ani, also known as the A'aninin, Haaninin, and Atsina, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in north central Montana.
17 The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming.
18 The Hidatsa originally lived in Miniwakan, the Devil's Lake region in what is now North Dakota, before being pushed southwestward by the Lakota. As they migrated west, the Hidatsa came across the Mandan. The two groups formed an alliance, and settled into an amiable division of territory along the area's rivers.
19 In what is now the USA, this Algonquian-speaking people historically lived westward of Lake Superior; in what is now Canada the major proportion of Cree lived north and west of Lake Superior, in what are now Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories.
20 The prayers cited here are from the ceremony for the keeping and releasing of souls. This ritual was taught, according to Lakota belief, by White Buffalo Cow Woman to Chief Standing Hollow Horn. Prayers for other ceremonies are very similar although not identical to these, as related by Black Elk.
21 Joseph Epes Brown comments as follows: “The term ‘red and blue days’ is really far more than a wish for good weather, for the Sioux believe that these are the days at the end of the world when the moon will turn red and the sun will turn blue. But since for the traditional man everything in the macrocosm has a counterpart in the microcosm, there may also be an end for the individual here and now, whenever he receives illumination or wisdom from Waken-Tanka, so that the ego or ignorance dies, and he then lives continually in the Spirit.” (Black Elk, Citation1953, p. 19)
22 In Lakota cosmology, the South was the place from which the primordial waters flowed and is consequently seen as the source of all life.
23 Omphalos is the navel, the center of then earth.
24 This refers to the Spotted Eagle whose feathers were part of the sacred pipe brought by White Buffalo Cow Woman.