Peace pipes

America is homeland of tobacco and its ritual smoking was one of the oldest traditions of the native population of the continent. Sacred tobacco was considered a gift of gods. The Great Plains Indians connected its appearance with a legend, according to which a star turned into the tobacco plant. At the same time, the real tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) which the Europeans came across in West-India was not known here. From 70 types of tobacco only two were used for smoking. Both grew wild, but makhorka (Nicotiana rustica) was also specially grown where there was a lack of it.

Tobacco was smoked in pure form and mixed with other plants: poplar, birch and willow roots. According to Columbus, on the Anthill Islands both men and women used a special V-shaped instrument for smoking; the word “tobacco” was used to denote this instrument, not the plant that was smoked. In South America tobacco was not only smoked – it was also chewed, licked and infusions were prepared from it.

In all cases the consumption of tobacco was connected with religious rituals. It was used as a means of communication with the spirits. Together with the smoke coming from the pipe, people’s requests for well-being go into the upper world. A pipe was smoked during the ritual of making peace between inimical tribes, and when establishing peaceful, neighborly and business relationships between representatives of different clans. The refusal from smoking the “peace pipe” was viewed as unwillingness to communicate with spirits. Sacred peace pipes were made of special type of red stone (catlinit mineral) mined in the region of Lake Michigan, or from clay and decorated with feathers and leather stripes. Simple cylinder pipes of kalumet type made of rush stems may have served as a prototype of peace pipes.

Smoking pipe. USA. The Indians of the Plains. 19th cent.		Tomahawk-pipe. USA, Oklahoma. The Wichita. Late 19th cent.