Evidence for Early Tobacco Use Found in Guatemala
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT—According to a Live Science report, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos of Yale University and his colleagues have detected nicotine in residue samples taken from pottery unearthed near the remains of sweat baths at Cotzumalhuapa, a city located in what is now Guatemala that was occupied between A.D. 650 and 950. The substance was found in three tall, narrow vessels typically thought to have been used to hold liquids. Tobacco may have therefore been consumed as a liquid infusion, or liquid may have been drunk from the vessels as tobacco was snorted or smoked. “We knew that tobacco was a very important substance employed for a variety of ritual and therapeutic purposes in ancient Mesoamerica and across the New World,” Chinchilla Mazariegos said. Physical evidence of tobacco use is rare, however, because it is rarely preserved in the archaeological record, he explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about the tobacco smoking habits of Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, go to "A Tale of Two Pipes."
More:
https://www.archaeology.org/news/12192-240305-guatemala-tobacco-use
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Residue analysis suggests ritual use of tobacco at the ancient Mesoamerican city of Cotzumalhuapa, Guatemala
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2024
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Introduction
Tobacco (Nicotiana sp., Solanaceae) is one of the most significant and ubiquitous ritual plants of the Americas (Linton Reference Linton1924; Mason Reference Mason1924; Wilbert Reference Wilbert1987, Reference Wilbert, Browman and Schwarz1979; Winter Reference Winter2000). Early colonial accounts and modern ethnographic sources attest to the widespread use of tobacco for religious and medicinal purposes in Mesoamerica (Sahagún Reference Sahagún1829; Thompson Reference Thompson1946, Reference Thompson1970; Robicsek Reference Robicsek1978; Durán Reference Durán and Heyden1994). In all probability, these practices are ancient but direct evidence concerning the use of tobacco in archaeological contexts is elusive due to the poor preservation of organic material in much of Mesoamerica, and carbonised tobacco seeds are rarely recovered for macrobotanical analysis due to their minute size (Oyuela-Caycedo & Kawa Reference Oyuela-Caycedo, Kawa, Russel and Rahman2015). Artistic representations and ethnographic sources indicate that the preferred method of use throughout the region is, and was, the smoking of dried tobacco leaves in cigars (Thompson Reference Thompson1970; Robicsek Reference Robicsek1978), though evidence of such practices rarely survives (Domenici Reference Domenici and Wrobel2014).
In this study, we present evidence of ritual tobacco use in southern Mesoamerica. Residue analysis using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) detected nicotine in three ceramic vessels recovered from cache deposits near the El Baúl acropolis at Cotzumalhuapa, Guatemala, dating to the Late Classic Pantaleón phase (AD 650–950). The residues in these vessels raise important questions about the modes of consumption and the ritual uses of tobacco in ancient Mesoamerica.
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Sculptures in the Cotzumalhuapa style are rich in representations of plants. Tobacco leaves are believed to be sculpted on the headdresses of two royal portraits (El Baúl monument 12 and Pantaleón monument 1) that were originally placed in the Great Precinct of El Baúl (Figure 4) (Chinchilla Mazariegos Reference Chinchilla Mazariegos2012). The likely presence of tobacco leaves in royal headdresses suggests that the plant was relevant for political legitimation and royal rituals at Cotzumalhuapa.
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Indigenous uses of tobacco
Indigenous peoples of the Americas have utilised tobacco for recreational, medicinal and religious purposes: historical and archaeological records show that smoking was the preferred method of consumption throughout the Americas before and after the arrival of Europeans (Wilbert Reference Wilbert1987; Oyuela-Caicedo & Kawa Reference Oyuela-Caycedo, Kawa, Russel and Rahman2015). Other forms of administration include chewing, sucking, snuffing, licking and drinking tobacco preparations (Mason Reference Mason1924; Elferink Reference Elferink1964). Throughout North America (Winter Reference Winter2000), for the Maya, and in South America (Rosengren Reference Rosengren2006), it was believed that gods desired and fed upon tobacco in various forms. Tobacco offerings may be blown as smoke, wafted onto ritual objects (Thompson Reference Thompson1970), provided as burning cigars (Domenici Reference Domenici and Wrobel2014) or thrown in a formal manner within religious activity (Kroeber Reference Kroeber1941).
Sixteenth-century reports show that tobacco was integrated into social life as part of meetings and ceremonies, used as a digestive aid after meals and considered as the proper conclusion to feasts (Durán Reference Durán and Heyden1994). Tobacco was smoked to increase success in hunting and travel on land and water, to mediate interactions with spirits, to engage in hospitality and friendship with neighbours, to eliminate fatigue as a stimulant and to combat diseases and maintain general health (McGuire Reference McGuire1899; Breedlove & Laughlin Reference Breedlove and Laughlin1993a). Tobacco was also perceived as dangerous, requiring attention to its presence in and around homes during use, storage and preparation and in social relations. Tobacco was a talisman to protect oneself, one's property or objects, used to suppress the work of witches, thwart evil, and to imbue ‘heat’ and potency to ritual objects (Breedlove & Laughlin Reference Breedlove and Laughlin1993b; Groark Reference Groark, Loughmiller-Cardinal and Eppich2019). It was applied to the skin or lips for spiritual protection and power (Thompson Reference Thompson1970).
Pipes were not widespread in Mesoamerica (Thompson Reference Thompson1946, Reference Thompson1970; Robicsek Reference Robicsek1978), except in Postclassic West Mexico (Lister & Howard Reference Lister and Howard1955; Cabrero García Reference Cabrero García1993). The modern Ch'orti’ use wooden pipes, but the antiquity of this practice is unknown (Hull Reference Hull, Loughmiller-Cardinal and Eppich2019). More common are cigars made entirely of tobacco or wrapped with leaves of other species such as sapodilla (Manilkara zapota), Barbados cherry/acerola (Malpighia glabra), allspice pepper (Pimenta officinalis) and common guava (Psidium guajava) or smoking through maize bracts and husks or the hollow stems of reeds (Benzoni Reference Benzoni and Smyth1857; Thompson Reference Thompson1970). Smoking tobacco is important in religious rituals and ancient Maya deities were sometimes portrayed smoking cigars (Tozzer Reference Tozzer1907; Robicsek Reference Robicsek1978; Tedlock Reference Tedlock1996; Flores & Kantun Balam Reference Flores and Balam1997). Tobacco is also commonly ground for consumption as a snuff (Starr Reference Starr1904). The Mexica blended ground tobacco with calcium hydroxide as slaked lime to produce a snuff known as picietl (Thompson Reference Thompson1946, Reference Thompson1970). The Tzeltal still carry tobacco gourds for stimulant use and to alleviate hunger and fatigue (Groark Reference Groark2010, Reference Groark, Loughmiller-Cardinal and Eppich2019). Mazatec and Maya travellers carry tobacco snuffs to protect themselves against, or to cause, witchcraft (Starr Reference Starr1904; Houston et al. Reference Houston, Stuart and Taube2006).
More:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/residue-analysis-suggests-ritual-use-of-tobacco-at-the-ancient-mesoamerican-city-of-cotzumalhuapa-guatemala/B8DE0CCECF3F7F378013E4D17DF7E0A2