Tobacco was most probably used for the first time by Mayas and then by various Amerindian tribes, particularly during religious and social rituals.
 
Tobacco was, above all, a sacred and curative plant used by priests and shamen. Its smoke was used to communicate with spirits and to soothe pains.
 
It was consumed rolled in the shape of a kind of long cigar or by means of a long tube called "tobago".
 
In South America, the discovery of more than 2000 years old pipes but also of portraits of gods and priests smoking corroborates this hypothesis.
 
 
Nevertheless, tobacco was only discovered around 1492 when Christopher Columbus (1450-1506) reached Cuba. There, he found an herb smoked through the mouth or the nose, mainly in the shape of a long tube of rolled leaves and decided to import it for the very first time in Europe.

 

Portrait of Christopher Colombus

Arrival of C. Colombus in America