The Origin of Tobacco: by Dr. Franklin.
A Swedish minister took
occasion to inform the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians, in a kind of sermon,
of the principal historical facts on which the Christian religion is founded;
and particularly the fall of our first parents, by eating an apple. When the
sermon was over, an old Indian orator replied, "what you have told us is
very good; we thank you for coming so far to tell us those things you have
heard from your mothers; in return, we will tell you what we heard from ours.
"In
the beginning, we had only flesh of animals to eat; and if they failed, we starved; two of our
hunters, having killed a deer, and broiled a part of it, saw a young woman
descend from the clouds, and seat herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the
other, "It is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let us offer
some of it to her.'' They
accordingly gave her the tongue; he was pleased with its flavor, and said your
kindness shall be rewarded; come here thirteen moons hence, and you will find
it." They did so, and found where her right hand had touched the ground,
maize growing: where her left hand had been, kidney-beans; and where her
back-fide had been, they found tobacco."
The Swedish
minister was disgusted. "What I told you, said he, is sacred truth:
yours is fable, fiction, and falsehood."
The
Indian, offended in his turn, replied, "My friend, your education has not
been a good one; your mothers have not done you justice; they have not well
instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand
and practice these rules, believed all your stories; why then do you refuse to
believe ours? We believe, indeed, as you have told us, that it is bad to eat
apples; it had been better that they had all been made into cider; but we would
not have told you so, had you not disbelieved the method by which we first
obtained maize, kidney-beans and tobacco,"
-- American Museum, Or
Repository Of Ancient And Modern Fugitive Pieces, Prose And Poetica, Volume I, Number
III,, July 1787, page 86
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