1584 – The Good Old Days Of Cheap Uppowoc

I’ve started, yet another, determined effort to give up smoking.  Now this has nothing to do with health concerns or any type of social stigma, but economics.  It’s hard to enjoy the nasty habit when, between the State & the Federal governments, a pack of Marlboro is running $9.

 That’s what I just finished paying at a WalMart in Arlington Heights, Illinois.  Heck, even the sub-generic brands, which kill you faster, are running $5 a pack. At that price, it’s getting time to give it up.

Smokers, nowadays, take a lot of heat from those who’ve never taken up the habit.  Times have definately changed, even in my short lifetime.  When I had started, it was pretty acceptable.  Or perhaps the anti-smoking folks just weren’t so vocal back then.  But it wasn’t until about the 1980’s that the smoking bans slowly started being enacted and annoying people decided to constantly start nagging smokers that we’re killing ourselves.

We all know it’s bad.  So if you’re an anti-smoking nagger, you’re not accomplishing anything by being annoying about it.

In any event,  to show the marked contrast with earlier times, there was a fellow by the name of  Thomas Hariot who wrote a report on Virginia based on his travels to the New World  in 1584 to 1586.  It was first published in 1588.  It’s pretty interesting reading, covering many things and subjects, but in it, he describes Uppowoc, or what we now call “tobacco”.

There is an herb called uppowoc, which sows itself. In the West Indies it has several names, according to the different places where it grows and is used, but the Spaniards generally call it tobacco. Its leaves are dried, made into powder, and then smoked by being sucked through clay pipes into the stomach and head. The fumes purge superfluous phlegm and gross humors from the body by opening all the pores and passages. Thus its use not only preserves the body, but if there are any obstructions it breaks them up. By this means the natives keep in excellent health, without many of the grievous diseases which often afflict us in England.

This uppowoc is so highly valued by them that they think their gods are delighted with it. Sometimes they make holy fires and cast the powder into them as a sacrifice. If there is a storm on the waters, they throw it up into the air and into the water to pacify their gods. Also, when they set up a new weir for fish, they pour uppowoc into it. And if they escape from danger, they also throw the powder up into the air. This is always done with strange gestures and stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding hands up, and staring up into the heavens. During this performance they chatter strange words and utter meaningless noises.

While we were there we used to suck in the smoke as they did, and now that we are back in England we still do so. We have found many rare and wonderful proofs of the uppowoc’s virtues, which would themselves require a volume to relate. There is sufficient evidence in the fact that it is used by so many men and women of great calling, as well as by some learned physician

Thomas Hariot – 1588
A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia

So, it took society 420 years to figure out what almost every smoker will tell you in a heartbeat.  It’s bad, we know.  Thomas Hariot was wrong…. he must have never actually smoked the stuff.

Phineous Zivick Huntington
June 16, 2007

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Years 1580 to 1589. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.