The use of tobacco among the southwestern Plains tribes is an integral part social, religious, and medicinal rights.
In his observations of the Mandan tribe, the American painter and ersatz social scientist George Catlin noted a peculiar ritual among his host family. At the beginning of a ceremonial feast, the head of the host family produced, “a handsome pipe and a tobacco pouch made of the otter skin.” Using his flint to ignite the pipe, the patriarch of the host family presented the device to his guest and allowed Catlin to partake in what was, up until that point, a unique and heavily guarded cultural trait. In Catlin’s observations, the Mandan use of tobacco was centered on the spiritual powers of the plant and its ability to put the user in touch with the supernatural world. This was more than a quick cigarette at the conclusion of a good meal. This was a spiritual act. Moreover, the use of tobacco among the Mandan was highly ritualized in a series of ceremonies. Even a simple dinner required its own tobacco ceremony. As Catlin observed, the ritual of smoking tobacco was both a “luxury” as well as a social responsibility.
Tobacco is used within the bounds of spiritual expression, social engagement, and the practice of medicine. Throughout the Southwestern Plains region, tobacco is smoked for a variety of social, medical, and religious ceremonies. Tying in the belief that the tobacco acts as a gateway to the spiritual realm, native healers and practitioners of the ceremonial arts will often augment the potency of the plant with a variety of other herbal remedies. Catlin observed that the mixture of tobacco and other herbal remedies depended greatly on the ceremony at hand. In the case of his dinner with his host, the tobacco (or k’nick k’neck as it is called among the Mandan and other southwestern tribes) was mixed with a flavor enhancing herb called castor and the bark of a red willow tree. The mixture was then garnished with a small amount of dried buffalo dung and subsequently offered to Catlin.
Among the Crow Nation, there is still a ceremony held at the beginning of the planting season to celebrate the virtues of tobacco. In Crow mythology, the tobacco seed (known as the Sacred Seed) is the spiritual life’s blood of the community. Even with the introduction of European religious practices into Crow culture, tobacco leaves are still offered with prayer. In the course of healing the sick, practitioners of the medicinal arts smoke cigarettes as a part of the intense healing ritual. The intention of this action is to carry the thoughts and prayers of the community to the supernatural world and the great Creator spirit.
Tobacco and the subculture around it became a central part of Plains and Southwestern tribal societies. Throughout the interference of European, and eventually American, missionaries, tobacco culture continued to grow and remain an integral part of the region’s religious, social, and medicinal life. It is in the tobacco ritual, whether smoked in pipe form or rolled in the form of cigarettes, that the practitioner communes with the spiritual realm and hopes to prevail upon the creator spirit.
David M Jones and Brian L Molyneaux, Mythology of the American Nations. (London: Hermes House, 2006).
Gilbert Legay, Atlas of Indians. (Hauppage: Barron’s Educational Services, Inc., 1995)
Peter Matthiessen, ed., George Catlin: North American Indians. (New York: Penguin Group, 1989).
Mark St. Pierre and Tilda Long Soldier, Walking in the Sacred Manner: Healers, Dreamers, and Pipe Carriers—Medicine Women of the Plains. (New York: Simon and Schuster,1995).
Carl Waldman, Atlas of the North American Indian. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2000).
Carl Waldman, Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. (New York: Checkmark Books, 2006).
