IN
THE OLD WORLD
The European scanners had their first contacts with the tobacco in the Antilles in 1492, when the native ones offered leaves from the plant to Christopher Columbus and their men like sign of friendship. After the subsequent exploration of the costs of Cuba, two of the members of that company commented to have observed the habit of smoking their inhabitants' cigarettes. Other later travelers also documented the employment of the tobacco for the Indians and these stories, together with the observations of the missionaries, soldiers, scanners and studious, they are fundamental to be able to understand the paper that the tobacco carried out in the indigenous cultures.
Many scanners discovered that the tobacco created adiction and it was used with many purposes, but few ended up understanding the reasons for those that the Indians considered it a sacred plant. Soon it was known that it was used with two fundamental ends. To small dose, it acted as stimulant, suppressive of the hunger and of the thirst and analgesic. Small quantities were used for social ends, such as consolidating friendships, to give impulse to the negotiations, dances and advice of war, and to strengthen the warriors. It was also used in small quantities during the ceremonies of fertility and to request favorable changes of climate, to predict a good fishing, firewood collection or siembra, and to guarantee the success in the election of a couple. To big dose, it was good to alter the state of conscience and it was said of him that facilitated the spiritual objectives, such as the consultations to the spirits, the trance states and the psychic cures. Their sacred condition resided in its employment to these excessive quantities.
