History of Smoking - Early Use

Early Use

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 and originated in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Andes. 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:

Smoking in the Americas probably originated in the incense-burning ceremonies of shamans, and 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 they smoked exists, but the most probable theory is that the tobacco was much stronger, consumed in extreme amounts, or was mixed with 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 include 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.