In America itself tobacco has many names, viz. "goia,"
"gozobba" or "cohobba," "petun," "y'ouly," "yoly," and "uppwoc." Are
there any proofs of its growing wild in America? At the discovery it was
every where found in a state of cultivation. The only mention I have met
with is in Drake's _Book of the Indians_[3], where he says it grew
spontaneously at Wingandacoa[4], and was called by the natives
"uppewoc." Does not this very notice imply something unusual? and might
not this have been a deserted plantation?
The Indians have always looked to Europeans for presents of tobacco,
which they economise by mixing with willow-bark, the uva-ursi, &c., and
there are some tribes totally unacquainted with its use. M'Kenzie says,
the Chepewyans learnt smoking from Europeans, and that the Slave and
Dogrib Indians did not even know the use of tobacco.
In mentioning the silence of early visitors to the East on the subject
of smoking, I might have added equally the silence of the Norwegian
visitors to America on the same subject.
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