A pipe is nothing more than a bowl to hold burning tobacco, and a tube through which the smoke may be drawn into the mouth. But this seemingly simple device is the result of a surprising amount of skill, industry, and science. In a thousand years of smoking pipe, the Indians of North and South America evolved only crude, clumsy pipes fashioned of coarse pottery or stone. The modern pipe, on the other hand, is the creation of European craftsmen, who brought their art to perfection over a period of more than four centuries.

The five basic parts of today's smoking pipe are: (1) the bowl, in which the tobacco is burned; (2) the shank, usually a part of the bowl; (3) the stem, (commonly made of vulcanite, a form of hard rubber) which fits tightly into the shank; (4) the lip, a slight flange on the mouthpiece end of the stem; and (5) the filter, generally of metal, and attached to the stem.

When the smoking pipe is assembled, the smoke travels from the bottom of the bowl, through the shank, around the filter, through the stem, and into the mouth. The lip prevents the stem from slipping between the smoker's teeth. Each one of these parts helps determine the quality of the smoke entering the smoker's mouth. Their design displays the end result of years of trial and error, of luck and experiment.

Fashioning a pipe by hand is a delicate operation. The briar or other pipe material must be carefully chosen, the bowl must be carved and hollowed out, the stem bored and fitted. Many ancient or primitive peoples found that making a smoking pipe called for a great deal of effort, and they valued their pipes accordingly.

THE PARTS OF THE PIPE

Makeshift pipes were contrived from whatever substances happened to be available. In the Orient, the Chinese created smoking pipe from hollow bamboo; the Indians of Nova Scotia made pipes from hollowed-out lobster claws, drawing the smoke through a hole pierced in a claw's narrow end. In Asia and Africa, "earth smoking" was a common practice. According to this technique, a pit dug into the soil served as the "pipe" bowl, and a hollow reed driven into the bottom of the pit as the "stem."

Primitive smoking pipes were widely used by the Mayas of Central America more than 1,000 years ago. The Mayas also had tobacco, a plant native only to the Americas. Stone carvings found on Mayan ruins actually portray priests blowing smoke as part of a religious ritual. Their smoking pipe was no more than a straight, tapering tube, with the tobacco at its wide end and its narrow end lodged in the priest's mouth.

The Mayas probably passed on their smoking habits to the Aztecs of Mexico, who had tubular smoking pipes made of silver, wood, bone, reed, pottery and tortoise shell. The straight tube pipe had a major disadvantage, however, in that the tobacco could easily fall out of the tube if the smoker failed to hold his head up. Eventually, pipe-makers began bending the tobacco-holding end of the tube upward, until the smoking pipe evolved into a bowl with an attached stem.

Smoking pipes with small bowls were popular among the early European sailors returning from colonial America. The North American Indians smoked one such smoking pipe, the famous calumet, or "peace pipe," consisting of a long stem made of ashwood and a "pipestone" bowl. The Indians decorated the calumet pipe with carvings, horsehair, and bird feathers. To the Indians, the mysteries of tobacco smoke and fire reflected the supernatural powers of the sun, which they worshipped.

Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana rustica, the two plants from which we obtain our modern tobacco leaves, were present in both North and South America centuries before the discovery of the New World. The plants grew sparsely, however, and their rare leaves were regarded by the Indians of North America as a gift from the gods.

These Indians often economized their tobacco by blending it with sumac leaves, the bark of the dogwood tree, the inner bark of the willow, and the leaves and bark of several other shrubs. Years ago, pure tobacco, taken so much for granted today, was a luxury not only to the Indians, but to Europeans as well. In Britain, henbane or moss was often used to adulterate the tobacco; in far-off Tibet, wild rhubarb root was mixed with it.

But the practice of smoking pipe was never limited by the availability of tobacco. Hundreds of years before America and the tobacco plant were known to exist, people in many other parts of the world gained pleasure from smoking various kinds of herbs. The Congo pygmies, for example, were accustomed to smoking a concoction of charcoal and smoldering leaves, using a three-foot length of bamboo cane as a pipe.

These four early American smoking pipe, formed from pottery, are believed to have been smoked before Columbus discovered America. The two smaller ones were found in Georgia, the larger ones in New York state.

Although Christopher Columbus is generally thought of as the man who discovered America, some modern historians tell us that earlier explorers, among them the Vikings, preceded him to the lands of the western hemisphere. But Columbus regains some of his lost glamour through his authorship of the first accounts of tobacco smoking.

In 1492, while sailing off the coast of Cuba, Columbus, mistakenly believing that he had reached the East Indies, sent ashore two emissaries with letters of introduction to the Khan of Cathay. The Spaniards visited many native villages, but found neither gold nor the Khan of Cathay. They related instead that they had "met with great multitudes of people, men and women, with firebrands in their hands and herbs to smoking pipe, after their custom."

Previously, Columbus also had written in his journal of a friendly offer of tobacco leaves from the natives, as follows:

But at the time neither Columbus nor his fellow explorers knew what use the Indians made of the dried leaves. Indeed, Columbus not only failed to realize that he had discovered a new continent; he also failed to bring to light the stimulating effects of tobacco and smoking pipe! European explorers did not find out about the pleasures of smoking pipe until several decades later.

Some explorers reported seeing primitive South American Indians smoking through the nose, rather than through the mouth. Many early Indian smoking pipes consisted of Y-shaped forked reeds, hollowed out to receive tobacco. The two ends of the fork were placed in the nostrils and the smoke was inhaled through the nose. This form of smoking pipe is probably more instinctive than smoking through the mouth, since it is our sense of smell that first introduces us to the fragrant aroma of burning tobacco leaves. Eventually the Indians abandoned nose-smoking and took up smoking through the mouth. The new method was much more convenient, for now the smoker could clamp the pipe between his teeth, leaving both hands free to fill the pipe and light the tobacco.

The Spanish observers related how the Indians would smoke intensely until intoxicated, inhaling the strong smoke through their noses until, numbed and exhausted, they fell asleep. Their womenfolk would then carry the Indians to their hammocks, and leave them lying there until they sobered up.

The word "tobacco" originally did not refer to the leaves or the plant, but rather to the device through which the Indians used to smoke the brown leaves. The Spaniards met many natives smoking pipe dried tobacco rolled inside broad dried leaves of Indian corn. The corn leaves formed a kind of pipe, which the Indians called tobago or tabaco, a name promptly adopted by the Spaniards. The plant itself and its leaves were called by a variety of names, such as cohiba, petum, piecelt, yoli, and uppowac. Today, some form of the Spanish term "tabaco," turns up in most languages.

One of the first descriptions of tobacco smoking in the New World reached France through a report of Jacques Cartier, who explored the St. Lawrence River as far as where Montreal, Canada, now stands. In giving his account of the voyage, Cartier describes the Indians' use of tobacco:

"Then when they please they make a powder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of the said pipe, and laying a coal of fire upon it, at the other end suck so long that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till it cometh out of their mouths and nostrils, even as out of a chimney. They say that this doth keep them warm and in health; they never go without some of it about them."

The sixteenth-century French explorer and his fellow-countrymen had little liking for the peppery fumes, and tobacco was not mentioned again in France for another twenty years.

When the conquering Spaniards first witnessed the American Indians puffing violently at smoldering tobacco leaves, they tried it out themselves, and soon fell into the habit of pipe smoking. The sailors then proceeded to carry the practice of smoking pipe back to Europe, where it grew and spread.

The settlers in the new world were quick to exploit the increasing demand for tobacco in Europe, and many British colonists in Virginia made small fortunes in tobacco cultivation. At first, they grew the native North American variety, Nicotiana rustica, which they had seen raised by the Indians. But the fortunes of the tobacco growers greatly increased after 1612, when John Rolfe, the husband of the Indian princess, Pocahontas, imported seeds of West Indian tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, to Jamestown. This more desirable variety was an instant success and from then on every British-bound ship leaving the colony carried many bales of tobacco in its hold.

By this time, the value of tobacco had become so universal and so well established that the settlers used it as currency. Some of the colonists, starved for female company in the predominantly male settlements, advertised in England for wives, offering tobacco in payment for their passage. They were willing to deliver one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco for the passage of each of "a hundred young women of agreeable person and respectable character," making each prospective bride literally worth her weight in tobacco.

JEAN NICOT AND NICOTINE

Much of the early popularity of tobacco in Europe rested on its supposed medicinal properties, rather than on its pleasurable smoking qualities. The tobacco leaf was introduced as a universal remedy for all ailments by a Frenchman, Jean Nicot, from whom both the tobacco plant Nicotiana and the term nicotine derive their name.

Nicot pursued his experiments, and not long afterward returned to France where he informed the Queen of the marvelous cures which the plant had effected. One day, when the Queen was suffering from a severe headache. Nicot suggested that she sniff some powder he had crushed from dried tobacco leaves. The Queen agreeably took a pinch of the brown powder, and sneezed. After a few more sneezes, the Queen remembered her headache only to find it considerably improved.

From that moment on, the Queen of France became an ardent snuff enthusiast. The French Court followed her example, and the popularity of tobacco smoking pipe spread throughout the country. For many years the plant was called "The Queen's Herb" or "The Medici's Herb." Even those not suffering from a headache thought they could avoid the risk of getting one by an occasional sniff or two; snuff-taking rapidly became very fashionable.

But snuff was not as yet taken purely for pleasure; it was still considered strictly a medicinal preparation, to be purchased at the local apothecary's. Physicians gave it the somewhat repugnant Latin name of clysterium nasi which, liberally translated, means "nasal purge." An encyclopedia published at the time by Nicot himself provides the following listing:

"Nicotiane and smoking pipe. A herb with miraculous healing powers against all complaints such as boils, open sores, and rashes, etc. It was introduced to France by the envoy to the King of Portugal, Mr. Jean Nicot, after whom it derived its name."

The name Nicotiana was given to the tobacco plant not by Nicot himself but by the famed Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, to acknowledge Nicot's efforts in encouraging the plant's general use. Nicot did not live to see his medical observations discredited as having little scientific value; nor did he see snuff abused and vulgarized by being taken merely for its pleasurable sensations.

In popularizing snuff, Nicot inadvertently also helped to introduce smoking pipe. A pinch of snuff or a pipe of tobacco both produced a stimulating effect; whether one smoked or took snuff was just a matter of taste. When Frenchmen were first taking snuff, Englishmen were smoking pipes; but later on, when snuff became fashionable in England, smoking pipe had already spread throughout the rest of Europe. After Europe had had sufficient time to try both ways, the taste for smoking pipe triumphed.

TOBACCO IN ENGLAND

The English took to tobacco without regard for the medical attributes which the French credited to it. They found smoking gratifying and enjoyed it for the unique pleasure it afforded. The man who first introduced tobacco to England was the English naval hero Sir John Hawkins, who brought a supply from Florida as early as 1565. The next English sea captain to visit the Western hemisphere, Sir Francis Drake, returned to England from the West Indies in 1573.

It seems incredible to think that in this short period, from 1565 to 1573, the novelty of smoking pipe should have spread so rapidly throughout England. In a medical work published in 1570, the authors state that "within a few years tobacco had become an inmate of England" and describe smoking pipe as follows:

"You see many sailors, and all those who come back from America, carrying little funnels made from a palm leaf or a reed, in the extreme end of which they insert the rolled and powdered leaves of this plant."

A history of England published a few years later provides the following description of smoking pipe in the year 1573: "In these days the taking-in of smoke of the Indian herb called 'Tabaco' by an instrument formed like a little ladle, whereby it passes from the mouth into the head and stomach, is greatly taken-up and used in England . . ."

Although Sir Walter Raleigh did not initiate the use of tobacco into England, he was the man largely responsible for making it fashionable, especially in court circles. He later introduced the tobacco plant and its poor cousin, the potato, to Ireland (the tobacco plant and the potato are botanically related).

Sir Walter, like many other adventurers of the day, enjoyed the gifts which the New World had to offer. He attracted a great deal of attention with his pipe, and made many converts to smoking pipe. But smoking pipe was still a novelty, and the smoker of that time sometimes suffered at the hands of those who were ignorant of the habit. According to one story, Sir Walter Raleigh happened to employ a new servant, who had never witnessed tobacco smoking. One day, upon entering his master's room, he saw thick columns of smoke emerging from Sir Walter's mouth. Thinking that his master's insides were on fire, he rushed forward, snatched a tankard of beer from the table, and emptied it over Sir Walter's head.

One day, while in the presence of the Queen, he quietly took out his pipe and began filling it. Before the Queen could object, Sir Walter asked, with a smile, if Her Majesty thought that he could weigh the smoke from his pipe. The Queen could not imagine how this could possibly be done, but Sir Walter offered to perform the feat, and even persuaded the Queen to bet a handful of gold on the outcome.

Sir Walter first asked the Chemist of the Court to bring his most delicate scale. Carefully filling his pipe, he placed it on the scale, and asked the Chemist to note its weight. Sir Walter then settled down to a comfortable smoking pipe while the Queen and her courtiers watched attentively. When he had finished, he left the ashes in the pipe which was once more weighed by the Chemist.

Sir Walter then turned to the Queen and said: "If the present weight of the pipe is subtracted from its weight before I started smoking pipe, the difference must be the weight of that which has disappeared, that is, Your Majesty, the weight of the smoke."

The Queen graciously conceded the point and gave Sir Walter the promised handful of gold coins, saying: "I have met many alchemists who have let gold go up in smoke, but only you, Sir Walter, have I seen transmute smoke into gold." With that remark, smoking pipe was officially introduced into Queen Elizabeth's court, and in fashionable circles throughout England.

Sir Walter always remained a heavy smoker, and later in his life, after he had lost his popularity at court and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, his pipe became a comforting companion in his lonely cell.

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