Mesoamerican societies constructed their symbolic world from an intimate relationship with the natural environment, in which certain plants acquired a sacred status. Tobacco is a cultivated and wild plant that has been used since pre-Hispanic times for therapeutic and ritual purposes. Associated with protection, fire, wind, and clairvoyance, its ritual consumption made it possible to mediate between the human and the divine, as well as between health and illness. In pre-Hispanic times, tobacco accompanied gods and lords during ceremonies as a symbol of offering and power. For an entire year, the human-god (ixiptla) of Tezcatlipoca was required to learn to consume tobacco with skill and perfection. Priests customarily prepared a black ointment made from tobacco, soot, and ground insects with which they anointed their bodies; this “divine food” resembled obsidian, as well as the very body of Tezcatlipoca, and had protective purposes.
Mixtec myths recount that the first offering in the world was picietl (Nicotiana rustica), ground tobacco presented by the twin sons of the primordial couple. In offerings associated with the marriages of Mixtec nobles, tobacco was mixed with cacao, forming small mounds. King Moctezuma enjoyed carrying his acáyetl, tubes made of reed into which tobacco or liquid amber was inserted to perfume the breath. Ceremonies led by merchants included offerings of acáyetl to bless the staffs used in travel. Among the Purépecha, small tobacco balls (“of fragrances”) were prepared before the beginning of war; these offerings were presented to the fire god in order to guarantee success in battle and the capture of enemies destined for sacrifice.
Moreover, tobacco is intimately related to the gods of rain and meteorological phenomena. Various ancient and contemporary ceremonies include the offering of tobacco to request from the owners of the waters the rain necessary for the growth of edible plants. The narrative of the great famine in Tula describes how the Tlaloques, gods of water, requested from Tozcuecuex the sacrifice of his daughter (“the daughter of the Mexitin”) in the whirlpool of Pantitlán in exchange for maize. The gods console the lord by placing his daughter’s heart and all the seeds inside his small tobacco gourd (iyeteeon). The relationship between tobacco, water, and agriculture remains present in contemporary farming rituals, in which tobacco smoke and incense are equated with clouds. The ritual burning of tobacco is interpreted as the union of fire and water, complementary opposites that link heaven and earth.
Tobacco occupies a privileged place in therapeutic and divinatory contexts because of its purifying and narcotic properties, which make it possible to induce trance and gain access to the knowledge of the ancestors. In the past, tobacco was mixed with lime (tenexyetl) to alleviate bodily pain and fatigue; today, the Nahuas of Guerrero employ it to treat cases of witchcraft and also as a “shamanic intoxicant” to induce clairvoyance. This divinatory property is illustrated on page 10 of the Codex Colombino, where a hunchbacked figure possibly drinks picietl or “waters with hallucinogenic powers” in order to enter into ritual contact with the world of water.
In many Indigenous communities, tobacco is used in healing ceremonies against harmful winds and malevolent entities that invade the body in order to cause harm. Following childbirth, some midwives light cigarettes to protect themselves from the excessive heat emanating from the mother and the newborn, who are in a state analogous to death. The same occurs at funerals, where tobacco is employed to protect those present and as an offering of purification for the newly deceased. The funerals of the ancient lords of Mexico confirm the continuity of this practice, in which the deceased was “fed” tobacco and other aromatic substances that facilitated his passage to the world of the dead.
The mara’akáme of the Wixaritari (Huichols) employ tobacco, together with peyote, to induce visions that reveal the origin of illness; during these ceremonies, tobacco is sacrificed in honor of Tatewari, the fire god.