Smoke for the Gods

The first encounter between Europeans and tobacco came to pass in 1492 when Genovese Christopher Columbus arrived in Cuba and made out indigenous people on canoes that carried burning brownish leaves trapped in their lips. They were inhaling the smoke delightfully and soon Columbus figured out that unknown plant was something pleasant for human beings like him. Later on, he also found out that the exotic plant was an original way of evoking the gods and communicating with them in that New World –a place he mistakenly took down as the Asian part of the earth. The original Taino dwellers of Cuba used the term tobacco to call a hollow wooden tube where they burned the leaves of that plant called Cohiba, a crop hailing from Yucatan whose billowing smoke they used to inhale charmingly in an effort to touch base with their gods. Columbus mixed up the names and registered tobacco as the content inside the inhaling tool. That’s how the name of that sacred plant eventually got down in the history books. Europeans had their chance to take a firsthand look at the sacred smoke ritual staged by the Behique (chief), who tried to answer the questions and requests of his local residents while puffing at the burning leaves. The smoke of Cohiba was supposed to convey the mortal interests up to the divine location where gods Bayamanaco and Atabey lived, and their replies were also sent through the smoke rings down to the chief. As black slaves started arriving in the Caribbean lands, African, European and indigenous cultures melted into one another and in that blend tobacco played a highly religious role. Before the coming of the European settlers, Africans had no knowledge of the plant. Thus, this Caribbean neck of the woods witnessed the creation of Santeria, Mayombe or Palo de Monte, and Abakua. And the smoke of cigars served as a bridge to “talk to the dead in the afterworld,” to make spiritual cleansings and do away with evil jinxes, among other sacred conveniences.