An Indian Tradition
One of these legends is as follows: -
The first men who were created, says the tradition, proved to be bad men, and the great Spirit, finding them to be incorrigible, destroyed them all by drowning them in a great lake.
This story of the destruction of the first race of men by water is supposed to by some to have originated in a tradition of the general deluge described in the Sacred Scriptures.
After having thus destroyed one generation, the Great Spirit created another man, and finding, after he had lived alone for some time, that his condition was too solitary, he made him a sister. The brother and sister lived together quite happily for a while, when at last one morning the brother said that he had had a dream.
Five young men he saw in his dream, he said, coming one after another to see his sister, desiring her in marriage. She rejected the first four and accepted the fifth. This was a token, he thought, that if such young men should come she was to refuse the four first and accept the last. His sister said that she would do so.
In a short time the young men began to come. The first was named Tobacco. This was, however, before any such plant as tobacco was known. The young lady refused his suit, and he immediately fell backward and died. Note: We use here the English names of the plants referred to. Of course in the original legend the Indian names are given.
Next came a young man named Bean. He, too, was refused, and fell back and died like the other.
The next one was named Pumpkin, and the next Melon. Thy both met with the same fate as their predecessors. All fell backward when they found themselves rejected, and died. Finally the fifth young man came. His name was Maize. The girl smiled upon him, and gave him her hand. They were married, and from them proceeded all the subsequent generations of the human family.
From the ground where the bodies of the others lay buried there sprang up the several plants bearing these persons' names, the tobacco, the pumpkin, the melon, and the bean.
The narration of this legend here answers the double purpose of showing how important a place in the estimation of the Indians the maize plant occupied as an article of food for them, and also of giving an example of the traditionary tales which have come down from former generations in respect to the origin of the human family.
The Distinction of Exogenous and Endogenous
The maize plant brings to our view one of the greatest and most important distinctions that appear in the vegetable world, that of exogenous and endogenous plants, or, as they are sometimes termed, EXOGENS and ENDOGENS.
The word exogenous means outgrowing. An exogenous plant is one that grows by successive layers deposited at intervals beneath the bark upon the outside of the stem, as is the case with early all trees and shrubs that grow in cold or temperate climates. They all have a pith in the center and a bark upon the outside, and the wood of the stem between is formed by layers deposited in succession immediately beneath the bark.
An endogenous plant, on the other hand, grows by a uniform expansion of the whole substance of the stem within. It has no pith and no bark. The external surface is hard, however, and smooth. It is sometimes even glossy. The maize is perhaps the largest specimen of an endogenous plant which grows in northern latitudes. Very large specimens grow in tropical regions. The date, the bamboo, the rattan, the sugar cane, and various other canes, such as those used for fishing poles, are all endogenous. Indeed, this is the prevailing type of tropical vegetation, and the fact that maize is of this character seems to indicate that it is of tropical origin.
It is a very curious circumstance that the seeds of all exogenous plants have two lobes, while those of endogenous plants have only one. The lobes of a seed are by the botanists called cotyledons. Hence the class of endogens are sometimes called monocotyledonous plants, while that of exogens are called dicotyledonous. What connection there should be between the single cotyledon of the seed and the peculiar character and growth of the endogenous plant, its hard and shining outside surface, with no bark and no successive layers of wood, and on the other hand between a two-lobed constitution of the seed, and a bark, a pith, and a growth by successive outside layers, is a profound mystery. That there is some latent connection, however, is sure, for the two distinctions correspond with each other throughout the whole domain of the vegetable world.
In some plants, as in the bean, for example, the two cotyledons of the seed come out of the ground when the seed germinates, and appear above the surface in the form of two thick oval leaves. The division exists, though it is not so apparent in the seeds of all bark bearing trees, shrubs, and herbs of every kind.
The Tobacco Plant
Perhaps the most extraordinary of all the native American plants, considered in respect to the influence which it has exerted, and the effects which it has produced in the world since the discovery of America, is the tobacco plant. The attention of the Europeans was called to it almost from the outset. Columbus, when he first landed, sent some messengers into the interior on an exploring tour, and on their return, among other things that they reported, they said they found the natives smoking little rolls formed of the leaf of some sort of plant. One end of these rolls, they said, the people put into their mouths, and thus drew the smoke in from the other end which was lighted.
The plant was afterward found to be a narcotic, that is, to have the power of producing a sleepy and dreamy sensation when taken into the system. There are a great many plants produced in other parts of the world, the effects of which upon the system are narcotic, but those of the tobacco plant are peculiar. They are far more agreeable, and perhaps less injurious - so they say at least that use it - than those of any other narcotic plant.
It was, however, sixty or seventy years after the time that the attention of Columbus was first called to the plant before it was known in Europe. During all this time, though its existence and its effects were known to travelers visiting America, the use of it was regarded as a repulsive habit of savages, not to be imitated by civilized men. At length, in the year 1560, a small quantity of it was sent across the Atlantic to a certain Flemish merchant, and he sent a portion as a curiosity to the French minister at the court of Portugal, at Lisbon. The name of this minister was Nicot.
Nicot presented some specimens of the tobacco to the king of Portugal and to other distinguished personages, and they made trial of its effects. They were all so much pleased with the dreamy exhilaration which it produced upon them that they sent for more, and in this way it was soon introduced into Europe, where its fame spread with great rapidity. A very strenuous opposition arose to the use of it at the same time, and kings and governments, both civil and ecclesiastical, made earnest efforts to suppress it, but all in vain; and it has since, as is well known, become one of the most widely extended articles of consumption, and the most important in its effects, either for good or for evil, that the vegetable kingdom produces for man.
The Habit of Using Tobacco
This is not the place to discuss the character of these effects. All that I shall say is, that those who escape forming the habit of using tobacco in their youth, always, I believe, rejoice, through all the subsequent years of their lives, in their exemption from what is at best an inconvenience and a peril; while those who form the habit often spend their lives in fruitless and vexatious efforts to escape from the thralldom of it, and seldom or never recommend to others to follow their example in acquiring it.
Botanical Name
The botanists, when they came to procure specimens of the different species of the plant, and to add it to their catalogues, gave to the genus the name Nicotiana, from the name of the French minister, who was the first to bring it into notice in Europe. There is a substance, too, which is extracted from the plant, which has a name of the same derivation, Nicotine. Nicotine is very abundant in the leaves of the plant, and is one of the most virulent poisons known.