Native American Tobacco

A traditional sweat lodge offering of tobacco and red willow bark
made at the altar before participants enter the lodge. (U.S. Air Force photo/Monica Mendoza)

We are all aware now that tobacco kills hundreds of thousands of people each year. But it has a long role in American history - a history that precedes America.

Tobacco has been used ritually by the first occupants of this continent and they introduced it to the New World settlers. Some new research shows that Native Americans of the northwest were smoking tobacco more than 1,000 years before European fur-traders arrived with their own domesticated variety.

Tobacco use among Native people was historically associated with sacred rituals and ceremonies and was limited to only certain tribal members who smoked limited quantities.

Unfortunately, smoking numbers among American Indians today is high (37 percent of Idaho American Indians, for example) and traditional “tobacco kills” campaigns are not as effective with people who have a tradition of its sacred and cultural use. The new research may be part of efforts to more effective smoking cessation programs in Native communities, perhaps by debunking common urban myths about traditional smoking.