Tobacco
Nicotiana species
Also called Ceremonial tobacco
- Blackfoot
- Pisstukan
- Cree
- chi-stémáwᒋᐢᑌᒫᐤ
Know another name for this plant, or a different spelling? Tell us.
The offering plant. Tobacco is what is put down first, before a medicine is taken and before a question is asked of someone who carries knowledge.
Listed here so it can be recognised. We do not teach this one on a website.
Take care
- Commercial cigarette tobacco is not the same thing and is not a substitute in this context.
How to know it
- Note
- Ceremonial tobacco is grown and kept, not gathered wild in this territory. It is listed here because it belongs in any honest account of protocol, not because it is something to go out and find.
What it is used for
- Smudge and ceremony
Tobacco is offered before harvesting, and offered to a person when you are asking them to share what they know.
It is the plant referred to throughout the protocol notes on every other entry on this page.
We are not putting this online
This entry withholds preparation, ceremonial use, how it is offered. This belongs with the people who carry it, taught in person, not written out on a website by a health non-profit.
Where to ask instead: Ask at a Birchbark session, or speak with a knowledge keeper in your own community.
Protocol
Tobacco goes down before the medicine comes up. That is the short version of the teaching, and it is the one part of this page that applies to every other part of it.
How tobacco is grown, kept, tied and offered is taught in person. It is not something this website is going to explain.