Tobacco and the Origins and Domestication of Nicotiana

Tobacco and the Origins and Domestication of Nicotiana Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica and N. tabacum) is a plant that was and is used as a psychoactive substance, a narcotic, a painkiller, and a pesticide and, as a result, it is and was used in the ancient past in a wide variety of rituals and ceremonies. Four species were recognized by Linnaeus in 1753, all originating from the Americas, and all from the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Today, scholars recognize over 70 different species, with N. tabacum the most economically important; almost all of them originated in South America, with one endemic to Australia and another to Africa. Domestication History A group of recent biogeographical studies reports that modern tobacco ( N. tabacum) originated in the highland Andes, probably Bolivia or northern Argentina, and was likely a result of the hybridization of two older species, N. sylvestris and a member of the section Tomentosae, perhaps N. tomentosiformis Goodspeed. Long before the Spanish colonization, tobacco had been distributed well outside its origins, throughout South America, into Mesoamerica and reaching the Eastern Woodlands of North America no later than ~300 BC. Although some debate within the scholarly community exists suggesting that some varieties may have originated in Central America or Southern Mexico, the most widely accepted theory is that N. tabacum originated where the historical ranges of its two progenitor species intersected. The earliest dated tobacco seeds found to date are from early Formative levels at Chiripa in the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia. Tobacco seeds were recovered from Early Chiripa contexts (1500-1000 BC), although not in sufficient quantities or contexts to prove tobacco  use with shamanistic practices. Tushingham and colleagues have traced a continuous record of smoking tobacco in pipes in western North America from at least 860 AD, and at the time of European colonial contact, tobacco was the most widely exploited intoxicant in the Americas. Curanderos and Tobacco Tobacco is believed to be one of the first plants used in the New World to initiate ecstasy trances. Taken in large amounts, tobacco induces hallucinations, and, perhaps not surprisingly, tobacco use is associated with pipe ceremonialism and bird imagery throughout the Americas. Physical changes associated with extreme doses of tobacco use include a lowered heart rate, which in some cases has been known to render the user into a catatonic state. Tobacco is consumed in a number of ways, including chewing, licking, eating, sniffing, and enemas, although smoking is the most effective and common form of consumption. Among the ancient Maya and extending down to today, tobacco was a sacred, supernaturally powerful plant, considered a primordial medicine or botanical helper and associated with Maya deities of the earth and sky. A classic 17 year-long study by ethnoarchaeologist Kevin Goark (2010) looked at the use of the plant among the Tzeltal-Tzotzil Maya communities in highland Chiapas, recording processing methods, physiological effects, and magico-protective uses. Ethnographic Studies A series of ethnographic interviews (Jauregui et al 2011) was conducted between 2003-2008 with curanderos (healers) in east central Peru, who reported using tobacco in various ways. Tobacco is one of over fifty plants with psychotropic effects used in the region that are considered plants that teach, including coca, datura, and ayahuasca. Plants that teach are also sometimes referred to as plants with a mother, because they are believed to have an associated guiding spirit or mother who teaches the secrets of traditional medicine. Like the other plants that teach, tobacco is one of the cornerstones of learning and practicing the art of the shaman, and according to the curanderos consulted by Jauregui et al. it is considered one of the most powerful and oldest of plants. Shamanistic training in Peru involves a period of fasting, isolation, and celibacy, during which period one ingests one or more of the teaching plants on a daily basis. Tobacco in the form of a potent type of Nicotiana rustica is always present in their traditional medical practices, and it is used for purification, to cleanse the body of negative energies. Sources Groark KP. 2010. The Angel in the Gourd: Ritual, Therapeutic, and Protective Uses of Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) Among the Tzeltal and Tzotzil Maya of Chiapas, Mexico. Journal of Ethnobiology 30(1):5-30.Jauregui X, Clavo ZM, Jovel EM, and Pardo-de-Santayana M. 2011. â€Å"Plantas con madre†: Plants that teach and guide in the shamanic initiation process in the East-Central Peruvian Amazon. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 134(3):739-752.Khan MQ, and Narayan RKJ. 2007. Phylogenetic diversity and relationships among species of genus Nicotiana using RAPDs analysis. African Journal of Biotechnology 6(2):148-162.Leng X, Xiao B, Wang S, Gui Y, Wang Y, Lu X, Xie J, Li Y, and Fan L. 2010. Identification of NBS-Type Resistance Gene Homologs in Tobacco Genome. Plant Molecular Biology Reporter 28(1):152-161.Lewis R, and Nicholson J. 2007. Aspects of the evolution of Nicotiana tabacum L. and the status of the United States Nicotiana Germplasm Collection. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution  54(4):727-740.Mandondo A, German L, Utila H, and Nthenda UM. 2014. Assessing Societal Benefits and Trade-Offs of Tobacco in the Miombo Woodlands of Malawi. Human Ecology 42(1):1-19. Moon HS, Nifong JM, Nicholson JS, Heineman A, Lion K, Hoeven Rvd, Hayes AJ, Lewis RS, and USDA A. 2009. Microsatellite-based Analysis of Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) Genetic Resources. Crop Science 49(6):2149-2159.Roulette CJ, Hagen E, and Hewlett BS. 2016. A biocultural investigation of gender differences in tobacco use in an egalitarian hunter-gatherer population. Human Nature 27(2):105-129.Tushingham S, Ardura D, Eerkens JW, Palazoglu M, Shahbaz S, and Fiehn O. 2013. Hunter-gatherer tobacco smoking: earliest evidence from the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(2):1397-1407.Tushingham S, and Eerkens JW. 2016. Hunter-Gatherer Tobacco Smoking in Ancient North America: Current Chemical Evidence and a Framework for Future Studies. In: Anne Bollwerk E, and Tushingham S, editors. Perspectives on the Archaeology of Pipes, Tobacco and other Smoke Plants in the Ancient Americas. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p 211-230.Zagorevski DV, a nd Loughmiller-Newman JA. 2012. The detection of nicotine in a Late Mayan period flask by gas chromatography and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry methods. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 26(4):403-411.

Quotes From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Quotes From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The  Heart of Darkness,  a novel  published in 1899, is a famous work by Joseph Conrad. The authors experiences in Africa provided him with plenty of material for this work, a  tale of a man who gives into the enticements of power. Here are a few quotes from Heart of Darkness. The River The Congo River serves as a major setting for the books narrative. The novels narrator, Marlow, spends months navigating up the river in search of Kurtz, an ivory trader, who has gone missing deep in the heart of Africa. The river is also a metaphor for Marlows internal, emotional journey to find the elusive Kurtz. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!In and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened with slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Dreams and Nightmares The story actually takes place in London,  where Marlow tells his tale to a group of friends while they are on a boat anchored on the River Thames. He describes his adventures in Africa alternately as a dream and a nightmare, trying to get his listeners to mentally conjure the images that he witnessed during his journey. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularlised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me.  It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires.Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems I am trying to tell you a dream   making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams. Darkness Darkness is a key part of the novel, as the title implies. Africa at that time was considered a dark continent. Once Marlow finds Kurtz, he sees him as a man infected with a heart of darkness. Images of dark, scary places are scattered throughout the novel. And this also  ... has been one of the dark places of the earth.Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes.We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. Savagery and Colonialism The novel takes place at the height of the age of colonialism and Britain was the worlds mightiest colonial power. Britain and the other European powers were considered to be civilized, while much of the rest of the world was considered to populated by savages. Those images permeate the book. In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him ...  .When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages   hate them to the death.The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.