Tobacco:
credit: vandusen
Lobelia Tupa (Tobacco)
Native Region: Chile
Zone Range: 07-10
Preferred Climate: Sub-alpine to hot temperate
http://vandusen.plantexplorers.com/product_info.php/products_id/408
"Tobacco has been used for many generations as offerings to the spirits, for planting, for gathering food, for healings and for ceremonies. The sacred uses of tobacco are different for many tribes but a basic truth remains, tobacco should be used for prayer, protection, respect and healings. Tobacco is medicine. The meaning of medicine can be translated according to perceptions, i.e. power from the creator and/or knowledge of self.
Tobacco was used as medicine before first contact. After contact tobacco was used as "gold power" of the Americas supporting the establishment of the colonies, the clergy and the militia. In 1723 Maryland and Virginia exported thirty thousand kegs per year requiring 200 ships to transport it. Still to this very day one can walk through the nations capital building and see tobacco leaves sculpted to the columns. "
Copyright @ 1999. Vernellia R. Randall
http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/tobacco/native04.htm
Lobelia Tupa:
TUPA (Lobelia tupa), a tall, variable plant of the high Andes, is also called tabaco del diablo ("devil's tobacco").
In Chile, the Mapuche Indians smoke the dried leaves of this beautiful red-flowered plant for their narcotic effects.
Whether they are truly hallucinogenic has not yet been established.
They contain the alkaloid lobeline and several derivatives of it. The same alkaloid occurs in some North American species of Lobelia, especially L. inflata, known locally as Indian tobacco.
It has been used medicinally and as a smoking deterrent.
There are 300 species of Lobelia, mostly tropical and subtropical, and they belong to the bluebell family, Campanuloceae.
http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/golden_guide/g151-160.shtml
Lobeline; lobelanidine; norlobelanine.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tobacco+%22Native+American%22&btnG=Google+Search
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