Cigar Knowledge

An ancient Maya relief carving shows a figures smoking rolled-up leaves.  The Maya word for smoking was si’ kar (cigar) meaning “to inhale smoke.”

The indigenous people of Central America regularly used tobacco for medicinal and ceremonial purposes, during which tobacco enemas were probably endured for the hallucinogenic visions they induced.  Hence the term, “blowing smoke up one’s butt.”

Native American tribes of the Mississippi Valley region adopted tobacco smoking, mainly in the form of pipes, believing that their gods made themselves visible in the tobacco smoke.

It was the Arawak who settled on the archipelago chain of islands that today we call the Bahamas, and that it was descendants of the Arawak who greeted Columbus when he landed there in 1492.  They presented him with gifts of “fruit, wooden spears, and certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance,” he wrote in his journal.  The fruit was eaten, the spears stored, and the foul-smelling leaves were cast away. 

The man credited with introducing the custom of smoking to Europe was Rodrigo de Jerez, who had sailed with Columbus on his first voyage.  Jerez saw local tribes smoking when he explored Cuba.  Upon his return to Spain, Jerez was sent to prison by the Inquisition for spreading his “sinful and infernal” habits.

In 1560 Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal – and the man who gave his name to “nicotine” – reported to the French court on the medicinal properties of the tobacco plants, and he sent snuff to Catherine de Medici with word that it relieved migraine symptoms.

In England, Elizabeth I’s favorite courtier, Sir Walter Raleigh, was responsible for spreading the fashion of smoking a pipe during the latter half of the 1580s.  By 1600, tobacco whether smoked through a pioe or taken as snuff or chewing tobacco, had gripped Europe.  It was believed to offer relief from sickness and disease and became a symbol of status.

In 1604 James I of England decried the habit of smoking in his treatise “A Counterblaste to Tobacco.”  He raised the import tax which caused imports to fall dramatically.  When tax revenue fell drastically, he quickly reduced the import tax.  Economics in action!