Native Tobacco

Lewis mentioned two species of tobacco, possibly Nicotiana quadrivalvis and N. rustica—a Mexican species called Aztec tobacco—that the Arikaras cultivated “for the purpose of smoking in which way they use it altogether, as they neither snuff nor chew.”^[2]Lewis’s natural history notes, Thwaites, Moulton, loc. cit. In Lewis’s time, Nicotiana quadrivalvis Pursh and N. rustica were cultivars among Indians on the Great Plains, having long … Continue reading He briefly described the first, or “larger species,” without mentioning the four valves, and then detailed the Indians’ method of cultivation:

They prepare hills at the distance of about 2-1/2 feet from each other, and leavel the top nearly leaving it somewhat convex. In those hills they sew the seed as early in the spring as the climate will permit them to prepare the earth, say latter end of April. They keep the hills clear of weeds and grass by plucking it from among the stalks of tobacco with their fingers and sometimes allso thin the stalks of tobacco by plucking up the weaker stalks, tho they leave many stalks to grow on each hill.

The process was of particular interest to Lewis, himself a tobacco grower:

When the tobacco begins to form it’s seed poods [pods] it is then ready for the knife, when a great portion from each hill is cut and hung on sticks untill it is nearly dry, when they form them into carrots of the thickness of a mans arm, role them closely with willow bark, and hang them in the smoke of their lodges to dry. . . . They esteem much more the corroller [corolla, consisting of the petals] dryed for the purpose of smoking, and for this purpose leave some plant[s] more widely seperated from each other, in which situation they produce a greater abundance of flowers & seed. They begin to blume in the month of [blank] and continue untill the first frost. During the full blume of the flower they pluck the corrollar together with the flower and discarding the latter, suffer the former to dry in the shade. When perfectly dryed it resembles at first view the green tea, and in that state it is smoked by the indians.

Lewis found the Arikaras’ tobacco “very plesent,” adding, “it does not affect the nerves in the same manner that the tobacco cultivated in the U’S. dose.” Though obviously aware that the tobacco grown in his own part of the country had a unique property, he couldn’t have identified it, for it was not until 1828 that scientists identified the alkaloid component of N. tabacum as what we call nicotine. Most varieties now used in the manufacture of smokables and chewables have a nicotine content of a little over eight percent, based on the dry weight of cured leaves. Research has indicated that N. quadrivalvis had a nicotine content of approximately 0.16 percent. However, N. rustica, which may have been used less frequently, had a varying nicotine content that ranged from 2.88 percent up to 8.26 percent.^[3]Joseph C. Winter, Tobacco Use by Native North Americans: Sacred Smoke and Silent Killer (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 183. Other members of the family Solanaceae—potato or … Continue reading

Although Lewis wrote, “they pluck the corrollar together with the flower and discarding the latter, suffer the former to dry in the shade,” undoubtedly he meant to say the Indians picked the calyx and the corrolla, and discarded the latter. Only the calyx would dry into something resembling green tea. The corolla of this plant is up to 1.5 inches (4–5 cm) long; the calyx is from 14 to 20 cm long.

The bulky specimen pictured on the preceding page, was not pressed, but is a single stalk of tobacco leaves, without calices (plural for calyx) and corollas, that probably had already been hung in the smoke of a lodge to dry before Lewis acquired it. Corolla is Latin for “garland” and calyx is Latin for “cup.” Petal is Latin for “leaf,” and sepal means “cover.” Sepals usually are green, petals are not.