Category: Tobaccos

A little History:
From here: “Smoking pipes and tobacco have been a significant and visible part of the Choctaw traditional lifeway for a very long time, but they have not received much-written attention. The Choctaw name for tobacco is “hakchuma” (Byington 1915:131). According to a Choctaw cultural authority with whom we consulted on this article, tobacco plants were traditionally planted and tended by Choctaw medicine people, both male and female. After the plants matured, their leaves were removed and stored as dried rolls, tied up with bark strips. In the 1700s, some Choctaw communities grew enough tobacco both to supply themselves and to export it to Euro-American traders (Romans 1775:84-85)

These early Choctaw tobacco horticulturalists made a lasting contribution to the American tobacco industry. One of the traditional tobacco varieties that they developed, today known as “Perique,” may be the most expensive grade of tobacco in the world.  For our ancestors, and for some Choctaws today, tobacco-smoking, “hakchuma shuka,” is approached in a spiritual way. The rising puffs of smoke are seen to carry one’s words or prayers upwards to the Creator.   Several of our own employees have Choctaw heritage.”