Meager1
Dagobah Resident
I found this interesting little book on tobacco and thought maybe this information would be interesting to some of you as well.
I do grow tobacco, but have never heard of this particular method of smoking blossoms with added fat.
I wonder if it may be more healthful this way, or what the reason for it might be? I thought it might burn easier or remain moist for longer, but blossoms being the best part, I had never heard before this.
"Tobacco plants began to blossom about the middle of June; and picking then began.
Tobacco was gathered in two harvests. The first harvest was these blossoms, which we reckoned the best part of the plant for smoking.
Blossoms were picked regularly every fourth day. If we neglected to pick them until the fifth day, the blossoms would begin to seed. Only the green part of the blossom was kept.
When we fetched the blossoms home to the lodge, my father would spread a dry hide on the floor in front of his sacred objects and spread the blossoms on the hide to dry.
The smoke hole of the lodge, being rather large, would let through quite a strong sunbeam, and the drying
blossoms were kept directly in the beam. "When the blossoms had quite dried, my father fetched them over near the fireplace and took a piece of buffalo fat, thrust it on the end of a stick and roasted it slowly over the coals.
He touched it lightly here and there to the piled up blossoms, so as to oil them slightly, but not too much.
Now and then he would gently stir the pile of blossoms with a little stick, so that the whole mass might be oiled equally.
When my father wanted to smoke these dried blossoms, he chopped them fine with a knife, a pipeful at a time.
The blossoms were always dried in the lodge : If dried without, the sun and air took away their strength.
"About harvest time, just before frost came, the rest of the plants were gathered. He dried the plants in the lodge. For this he took sticks, about fifteen inches long, and thrust them over the beam between two of the exterior supporting posts, so that the sticks pointed a little upwards. On each of these sticks he hung two or three tobacco plants by thrusting the plants, root up, upon the stick, but without tying them.
When the tobacco plants were quite dry, the leaves readily fell off.
It was the stems that furnished most of the smoking. They were treated like the blossoms, with buffalo fat.
We did not treat tobacco with buffalo fat except as needed for use, and to be put into the tobacco pouch ready for smoking. Before putting the tobacco away in the cache pit, my father was careful to put aside seed for the next year's planting."
USE OF TOBACCO AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
BY
RALPH LINTON
Curator of North American Ethnoi/xjy
Anthropology
FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CHICAGO
1924
I do grow tobacco, but have never heard of this particular method of smoking blossoms with added fat.
I wonder if it may be more healthful this way, or what the reason for it might be? I thought it might burn easier or remain moist for longer, but blossoms being the best part, I had never heard before this.
"Tobacco plants began to blossom about the middle of June; and picking then began.
Tobacco was gathered in two harvests. The first harvest was these blossoms, which we reckoned the best part of the plant for smoking.
Blossoms were picked regularly every fourth day. If we neglected to pick them until the fifth day, the blossoms would begin to seed. Only the green part of the blossom was kept.
When we fetched the blossoms home to the lodge, my father would spread a dry hide on the floor in front of his sacred objects and spread the blossoms on the hide to dry.
The smoke hole of the lodge, being rather large, would let through quite a strong sunbeam, and the drying
blossoms were kept directly in the beam. "When the blossoms had quite dried, my father fetched them over near the fireplace and took a piece of buffalo fat, thrust it on the end of a stick and roasted it slowly over the coals.
He touched it lightly here and there to the piled up blossoms, so as to oil them slightly, but not too much.
Now and then he would gently stir the pile of blossoms with a little stick, so that the whole mass might be oiled equally.
When my father wanted to smoke these dried blossoms, he chopped them fine with a knife, a pipeful at a time.
The blossoms were always dried in the lodge : If dried without, the sun and air took away their strength.
"About harvest time, just before frost came, the rest of the plants were gathered. He dried the plants in the lodge. For this he took sticks, about fifteen inches long, and thrust them over the beam between two of the exterior supporting posts, so that the sticks pointed a little upwards. On each of these sticks he hung two or three tobacco plants by thrusting the plants, root up, upon the stick, but without tying them.
When the tobacco plants were quite dry, the leaves readily fell off.
It was the stems that furnished most of the smoking. They were treated like the blossoms, with buffalo fat.
We did not treat tobacco with buffalo fat except as needed for use, and to be put into the tobacco pouch ready for smoking. Before putting the tobacco away in the cache pit, my father was careful to put aside seed for the next year's planting."
USE OF TOBACCO AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
BY
RALPH LINTON
Curator of North American Ethnoi/xjy
Anthropology
FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
CHICAGO
1924
