Indian Tobacco

Oral tradition and archaeological studies indicate that smoking among Native Americans was in practice for thousands of years prior to contact. Recent chemical analysis of Coastal and Plateau pipes from several pre-contact sites, show that several plants were being used as smoking material. For example, one pipe had been used to smoke tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca), Indian tobacco (N. quadrivalvis), Aztec tobacco (N. rustica), white sagebrush (Artemisia ludoviciana), bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), red osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), puke weed (lobelia inflata), smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), Sonoma sage (Salvia sonomensis), yew (Taxus bevifolia), and common mullein (Verbascum thapsus).^[1]The authors used metabolomics analysis—a method that identifies metabolites rather than single compounds. William J. Damitio, Shannon Tushingham, Korey J. Brownstein, R. G. Matson, David R. Gang, … Continue reading In October 1804, near present Mobridge, South Dakota, Meriwether Lewis learned of two tobacco species cultivated by the Arikara. He described both species and preserved a specimen of one: Nicotiana quadrivalvis Pursh var. quadrivalvis—commonly called Indian tobacco.

Indian Tobacco

Lewis mentioned that the Arikaras cultivated “for the purpose of smoking in which way they use it altogether, as they neither snuff nor chew.”^[2]Gary Moulton, The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 3:460–61. In Lewis’s time, Nicotiana quadrivalvis Pursh and N. rustica L. were cultivars among Indians on the Great Plains, having long since been imported for the purpose of cultivation from the vicinity of eastern California.^[3]James L. Reveal, Gary E. Moulton, and Alfred E. Schuyler, “The Lewis and Clark Collections of Vascular Plants: Names, Types, and Comments,” Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences … 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.

Aztec Tobacco

At Fort Mandan, Lewis briefly described a smaller species cultivated by the Arikara:

The smaller species of this plant differs but little from this just discribed— it is cultivated in the same manner and bears a flower like the other only smaller— the only difference is the form of the leaf, which is larger (say) 4 times the size and ovate— they dry this on sticks and use it in that manner it is reather stronger than the large kind and is seldom made into carrots by the Recares.—

The “smaller species” was likely Aztec tobacco, N. rustica L., a highly sacred species among Indigenous Peoples. Consistent with Lewis’s observations, Aztec tobacco had large leaves—up to twelve inches long near the base of the plant. Its trumpet-shaped flowers reach about an inch in length. In comparison, N. quadrivalvis leaves are only up to six inches in length and its flowers are twice as long as N. rustica—about two inches.

North American peoples received Aztec tobacco from South America and cultivated it as a sacred plant. In addition to smoking practices, ethnologists have recorded its use as a drug. For example, the Cherokee prescribed^[4]When referring to the ethnobotanical record, past tense will most often be used. This does not imply the plant is no longer in use in the manner described. it as a diaphoretic to induce sweating, diuretic to pass urine, emetic to cause vomiting, expectorant to clear phlegm, gastrointestinal aide, and vertigo medicine.^[5]Daniel E. Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany (Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1988), 356.

Comparative Nicotine Levels

The term “Nicotiana” was coined by Caspar Baulin in 1621 to honor Jean Nicot (1530-1600), the French ambassador to Portugal, who introduced tobacco at the French court in 1561. The name was formally adopted by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1753, at which time four species were known. Today, the genus contains some 60 species, these being found in the New World, on scattered Pacific Islands, and in Australia. When Frederick Pursh proposed Nicotiana quadrivalvis in 1813, all previously known species had a 2-valved seed capsule. Quadrivalvis with its 4-valved capsule was conspicuously different. Most of the western American species of the genus have four valves.

Most tobacco used in the manufacture of modern smokables and chewables have a nicotine content of a little over eight percent, based on the dry weight of cured leaves. Research indicates that N. quadrivalvis has a nicotine content of approximately 0.16 percent. However, N. rustica has a varying nicotine content that ranges from 2.88 percent up to 8.26 percent.^[6]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 nightshade—contain nicotine, the more notable being Atropa bella-donna (bella-donna of Europe), Datura stramonium (jimsonweed, a plant of the Americas), and Solanum tuberosum (Irish potato, an Old-World species). Small amounts are reported in such plants as celery, papaya, coca, English walnut and even non-flowering plants like the club-moss Lycopodium clavatum (running ground-moss) found in the Eastern United States and in the Pacific Northwest. The amount of nicotine in Nicotiana tabacum is many times greater than in any of these. Coyote tobacco (N. attenuata)—which still grows in the wild—produces even higher concentrations of nicotine. Some say it has as much as three times N. tabacum—especially when the plant is attacked by leaf eating insects or when browsing jackrabbits and mule deer damage its stems.^[7]Ian T. Baldwin, “‘Curing’ Of Nicotiana Attenuata Leaves by Small Mammals Does Not Decrease Nicotine Contents”, Western North American Naturalist, Vol. 63, No. 1 (January … Continue reading

Repatriation and Rebirth

In the summer of 1887, Scottish surgeon and naturalist for the Royal Navy aboard the Prince of Wales, Archibald Menzies, came to the northern Pacific’s Queen Charlotte Islands. There, he collected samples of tobacco growing in a Haida garden. His specimen would be known for a time as N. multivalvis. In 1825, botanist David Douglas visited Fort Vancouver and learned of a tobacco being grown locally. He found a garden along the lower Willamette River where he collected specimens.

Until 2002, N. quadrivalvis was considered extirpated, and the plants preserved by Archibald, Lewis, and Douglas were the only known specimens. Live plants had not been seen—at least by botanists—since the 1920s. Var. tabacum had seemingly replaced it forever. But circa 1992, a Native American farmer gave some seeds to the National Park Service who then grew it in plots at the Fort Union Historical Site. Seeds and fresh plants are being dispersed to botanists, universities, and Tribal Nations. The plant shown in the figure above was cultivated at the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site and shared with this author.^[8]Jack Nisbet, Visible Bones: Journeys Across Time in the Columbia River Country (Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2003), 134–142; A. Scott Earle and James L. Reveal, Lewis and Clark’s Green World: … Continue reading

In 2017, some of the seeds (var. multivalvis) appropriated by David Douglas along the Willamette River were found by tribal biologist John Schaefer in a seed bank in the Pułway (cleanly spelled Pulaway) region of Poland. They were returned to the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians who are now producing the traditional tobacco. Aztec tobacco is cultivated in the Southwest and coyote tobacco still grows in the wild.^[9]Brian Bull, “Once thought lost for good, Native Americans’ prized tobacco is back in Oregon”, KLCC Public Radio (Eugene: November 20, 2023) … Continue reading

Analysis of fresh plants grown from the North Dakota farmer’s seeds has shown them to be the same variety collected by Lewis while visiting the Arikara Villages in October 1805—var. quadrivalvis. Additionally, the plant sometimes referred to as Nicotiana multivalvis became N. quadrivalvis var. multivalvis. The California Nations’ Bigelow tobacco, Nicotiana bigelovii, became Nicotiana quadrivalvis var. bigelovii. With these new discoveries and re-classifications, one can with confidence say that the quadrivalvis species was cultivated throughout the Plains, Plateau, and Pacific Coastal Nations from California up to Alaska—and still is.