Peace Pipe One Thing, Tobacco Abuse Another

An initiation, a greeting, a thank you.

Smoking serves many purposes in American Indian culture and has for a long time.

“If there was disagreement among people, they smoked a peace pipe to help rectify those,” says Joe Pakootas, chairman of the Colville Confederated Tribes. “You’d go to somebody’s camp and they would welcome you with tobacco.”

But Indian health educators are emphatic: Ceremonial smoking is not the same as daily use of cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.

“Commercial tobacco abuse causes enormous and unnecessary health risks and premature death among many of our Indian people,” says the policy statement of the American Indian Tobacco Education Network. “It is contradictory to our original sacred use which purifies, supports, strengthens and nurtures Indian people.”

The unique network is part of California’s effort to tailor anti-smoking messages to different ethnic groups. If the network did not honor sacred tobacco use, its health message would be lost on many Indians, says manager Toni Martinez.

She knows that the distinction between the peace pipe and the cigarette pack can get blurred.

For one thing, commercial tobacco is often used in ceremonies. That’s partly because wild plants that were traditionally burned are becoming harder to find.

Smoking traditions vary among the nation’s 558 tribes. Some Indians still cultivate “wild tobacco” or “mountain smoke” for ceremonial use. Other plants, including peyote and sweetgrass and sage, are also used.

Kinnikinick was popular among tribes in the Inland Northwest. Logging has destroyed much of that wild mountain plant, says Alfred Nomee, a traditionalist who heads the Coeur d’Alene tribe’s natural resources department.

Now, if a Coeur d’Alene Indian sees an owl and takes that to be a spiritual warning, he may leave a cigarette in the forest as thanks.

Another reason for the blurry line between ceremonial use and everyday smoking is that the two are often mentioned in the same breath. That’s especially confusing to children, says Don Reese, who has Navajo and Sioux blood. Long before he dealt with tobacco issues for the Indian Health Service, he watched his elders chewing tobacco and smoking.

“I can remember growing up, my grandmother always had a big old dip in her mouth, and said ‘This is my way of showing respect.’ My grandfather would have a cigarette, and say ‘This is my way of praying.”’

Tradition can be an excuse for Native Americans to keep puffing, says Dr. David Baines, an Indian physician in St. Maries. He notes that a few traditionalists denounce cigarette smoking as a sign of disrespect for true Indian ways.

Reese smoked until he was 28. That’s when he watched an uncle die of cancer. He agrees that strident anti-tobacco campaigns just won’t work with Indians.

“That’s like telling someone of the Catholic religion that you can no longer have wine.”

, DataTimes