The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco

279 Pages·2007·1.03 MB·English

by  Eric Burns

THE SMOKE OF THE GODS
ALSO BY ERIC BURNS
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NONFICTION
Broadcast Blues
The Joy ofBooks
The Spirits ofAmerica:
A Social History ofAlcohol
Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and
the Rowdy Beginnings ofAmerican Journalism
FICTION
The Autograph
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E R I C B U R N S
Smoke
The
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Gods
A Social History of Tobacco
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1601 North Broad Street
Philadelphia PA 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2007 by Temple University
All rights reserved
Published 2007
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Text design by Kate Nichols
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements
ofthe American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
ofPaper for Printed Library Materials,ANSI Z39.48-1992
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burns,Eric.
The smoke ofthe gods :a social history oftobacco / Eric Burns.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-59213-480-7 (hardcover :alk.paper)
1. Tobacco use—History. 2. Tobacco—Social aspects.
3. Tobacco—United States—History. 4. Smoking—History.
5. Antismoking movement—History.
6. Antismoking movement—United States—History. I. Title.
HV5730.B87 2007
394.1'4—dc22 2006017390
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
To
TIM AND VERA COLE
AND
BURGESS RUSSELL
for friendship
transcending distance

CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION•The Ancient World •1
ONE•The Old World •14
TWO•The Enemies of Tobacco •36
THREE•The Politics of Tobacco •56
FOUR•The Rise of Tobacco •71
FIVE•Rush to Judgment •97
SIX•Ghost, Body, and Soul •103
SEVEN•The Cigarette •128
EIGHT•The Carry Nation of Tobacco •140
NINE•The Last Good Time •168
TEN•The Case against Tobacco •189
ELEVEN•The Turning Point •216
EPILOGUE•“The Ten O’Clock People” •240
Acknowledgments•245
Notes•247
Select Bibliography •259
Index•265

INTRODUCTION
(cid:3)
The Ancient World
I
MAGINE YOURSELF A MAYA. You are short, muscular, and well
conditioned;your skin is dark,and your hair is long and unruly.You live
in the Yucatan Peninsula ofMexico more than 1,500 years ago,surrounded
by forest and warmed by a sun that is almost always set to low-bake.You raise
crops and kill animals,trade pelts and build roads,play a primitive version of
basketball,and dance to the rhythms of impromptu percussion.Your house
is a hut with mud-covered walls and a roofofpalm leaves.
You have filed your teeth until the tips are sharp.You have not only pierced
your ears but stretched them far beyond nature’s intent by wedging ever larger
plugs into the holes in the lobes; they are now the size of small pancakes.
There is a tattoo ofthe sun on your forearm and ofa mountain peak on your
shoulder; other tattoos, in other locations, are merely designs, representing
your own notions ofbeauty and symmetry rather than the shapes ofnature.
Because your parents held a small piece ofcoal tar at the bridge ofyour nose
when you were an infant and forced you to focus on it,your eyes are crossed
in a most becoming manner,reminiscent of the sun god.You also have you
parents to thank for the rakish slope of your forehead; while your mother
showed you the coal tar,your father was angling a piece ofwood onto the top
of your face and pressing down as hard as he could for as long as he could,
this so that your still plaint skull would be streamlined according to the day’s
fashion.Cosmetic surgery,pre-Columbian style.
On special occasions you paint yourselfred.You decorate your clothes with
feathers plucked from birds that have been specially bred for the extravagance
oftheir plumage.You hang tiny obsidian mirrors from your hair,and they tin-
kle as you walk,catching the sun.The ring in your nose also catches the sun.
So do your beetle-wing necklace and the pieces of jade in those overgrown
2 INTRODUCTION
lobes ofyours.As you make your way through the village at the peak ofnoon,
your head is a symphony ofreflected light.
You are a man ofsubstance as well as style.Your tools are crude,it istrue,
and although the Maya have joined other peoples in discovering thewheel,
it is to you but an aid to various minor tasks, not a civilization-altering
means of transportation. Nor do you farm wisely. You clear the land by
burning away existing vegetation,which in time depletes the soil and makes
it necessary for you to clear more land,ever moving on,ever destroying.Your
cities are primitive,even by the standards of the time,and education is for
the few.
But your mathematicians conceived the zero more than a thousand years
before the Hindus,and your astronomers devised a calendar that is the model
ofprecision,enabling you to understand the phases ofthe moon and to plot
the frequency ofsolar eclipses,which used to seem random.Your architecture
will stand the test oftime,as will some ofyour sculpture and the glyphs that
constitute your written language.Your government is not sophisticated,but
neither is it repressive,and you are not easily drawn into arguments with your
neighbor or warfare with other tribes in the region.Hardships are uncommon
and,for the most part,manageable.
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion,John Calvin will one day write
that “a sense ofdivinity is by nature engraven on human hearts.”This is cer-
tainly true for you and your fellow Maya,to whom the world is a place ofmys-
tery and foreboding, despite the successes of your science. Sometimes you
look up at a blue sky,other times at a gray one,and you cannot predict the
change.Sometimes the air is still,sometimes it blows fiercely,and you do not
know the cause ofeither.It may rain so hard that your hut is destroyed or so
little that your corn and squash do not grow,and no one can say why.
And it is not just the weather that puzzles you.Almost daily there are sights
you do not recognize and sounds you cannot identify and smells that suggest
the proximity of danger.Even the simplest things can appear ominous when
the explanation is hidden.One morning the hunt goes well,the next there are
no animals to be seen for miles.One afternoon your body feels fine,the next
you are fevered or stiffor sore.As the years pass,your reflexes slow,your vision
dims;what you could once accomplish with ease now seems a struggle,and
you do not understand why you are no longer the same.Death may take you
without warning, as it does the elders of your tribe—but where? Is death a
physical place,like a body ofwater to which one journeys for refreshment,or
simply an end to all you know and ever will know,like a sleep from which one
never awakens? The night is not just the other side of day,but in the purity
and depth ofits blackness,it is a perfect metaphor for your relationship to the