This Colonial Disease
On the relationship between addiction and colonization
Quitting smoking is easy, you know. I’ve done it a dozen times.
The last time I quit, the time-before-this-time I mean, I had a curious thought about tobacco. How is it that this plant, long held as one of the most sacred medicines on this continent, is now one of the most harmful, toxic, heavily-abused substances on the planet?
I sat there, looking at a pinch of American Spirit tobacco placed ceremonially on the ground in the moonlight and I wondered:
Is the global smoking epidemic a spiritual revenge for colonization?
The Nebraska Hocągara spoke of the spirits having great desire for tobacco, and granting the wishes of those who offered it to them in ceremony. Yanesha shamans in Peru advised the Spanish not to poop in their medicinal gardens, lest it anger the tobacco spirit. For the Potawotami, tobacco was a direct gift from the Great Spirit. The Potawotami smoked in ritual and in prayer. “When Whites came,” wrote Alanson Skinner, “they took up smoking tobacco, but never used it as part of their prayers.” And that contradicted how the Great Spirit meant for it to be used.
The history of White tobacco use has always been one of disrespect. If there is a spiritual essence to tobacco, it…
