OK, that's the first source I've seen make the claim that tobacco smoking
can be healthy. I wouldn't put all my confidence in one source, especially
when that source implies that corn and beans are healthy foods--which I do
not consider them to be. Not all Indians ate corn and beans (the Eskimo
certainly didn't) and they came to the Iriquois fairly late in Indian
history because they were not native to Iriquois land--they originated in
Central America and eventually surpassed indigenous sunflower and lamb's
quarters as North American staples, according to this article...

From: History of the United States: Pre-Colonial America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States
 
"Archaeological as well as Geological evidence suggests that the present-day
United States was originally populated by people migrating from Asia via the
Bering land bridge starting some 20,000 years ago.[1] These people became
the indigenous people who inhabited the Americas prior to the arrival of
European explorers in the 1400s and who are now called Native Americans.

Many cultures thrived in the Americas before Europeans came, including the
Puebloans (Anasazi) in the southwest and the Adena Culture in the east.
Several such societies and communities, over time, intensified this practice
of established settlements, and grew to support sizeable and concentrated
populations. Agriculture was independently developed in what is now the
eastern United States as early as 2500 BC, based on the domestication of
indigenous sunflower, squash and goosefoot [aka lamb's quarters].[2]
Eventually, Mexican maize and legumes were adapted to the shorter summers of
eastern North America and replaced the indigenous crops.

The first European contact with the Americas was with the Vikings in the
year 1000. Leif Erikson established a short-lived settlement called Vinland
in present day Newfoundland. It would be another 500 years before European
contact would be made again."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paleolithic Eating Support List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Susan Carmack
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 11:50 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Tobacco - was Intelligence of Stone Age People
> 
> Hi Paleo Phil and Paleophiles!:
> 
> >I've never heard someone make the claim that tobacco smoking is
> natural or
> >healthy and I agree that just because something was done before the
> >Neolithic doesn't make it so.
> 
> In the Book, Young Again, John Thomas talks about Tobacco:
> 
> The Sacred 3 Sisters
> 
> First the Creator gave us tobacco - Kanonsionni-Kayeneren-Kowa
> The Iroquois
> 
> When the white man came to the Americas, he discovered that the main
> staples of the Indian diet were corn, beans and squash. The Indians
> called these foods the 'scared three sisters'.
> The Indians understood the importance of these foods in their diet.
> They also understood the importance of another FOOD - a food which
> they held in the utmost esteem. That food was TOBACCO.
> The Indians considered tobacco sacred. It was considered sacred
> because the Indians had discovered tobacco's NUTRITIONAL
> characteristics. Their discovery was incorporated into their religious
> beliefs.
> The status of tobacco in the Indian psyche was based on DIETARY need,
> but it was respected on a religious level. Smoking was the extension
> of the dietary status tobacco held in the Indian's culture.
> When native peoples elevate certain foods and events to religious
> status, there is a reason. Unfortunately for millions of people, the
> white man failed to take his cues from Indian dietary habit and
> religious beliefs. The white man did NOT make the connection between
> diet and health until four hundred and ninety-eight years later
> (1990)....
> 
> Mr. Thomas includes how the term, 'red neck', came about:
> 
> In 1735 the Spanish physician Casal described a disease condition by
> one of its key SIGNS. He called it mal de la rosa. This means 'red
> sickness'. People on farms who ate a lot of corn suffered the most.
> They typically had a red ring around their neck which came to be
> called 'Casal's necklace'. In the American south, corn's dominance
> among farmers and the poor, caused the phrase 'red neck' to come into
> usage.
> 
> He then discusses pellagra's signs  - dizziness, depression, dementia
> and delusion - caused by using corn without balancing it with
> tobacco's vitamins that include B-12. Tobacco is the richest source
> of the B's in the world - nothing compares to it - nothing!
> Concentrations of the B-complex vitamins run as high as 30%.
> 
>  From the turn of the century, nicotinic acid was known under the
> disguise name - P-P factor, short for Pellgra Preventive. This name
> was used until the generation then alive had died. Later in the
> 1930's when the word vitamin was coined, P-P factor became known as
> 'vitamin P-P.
> The pharmaceutical and oil industry went to work developing
> 'synthetic P-P factor. They did NOT want people to know they could
> treat pellagra, berberi and the spin-off dis-ease conditions that
> result from them-by growing their own cure in the form of tobacco.
> They did not want the people to make the association between P-P
> factor, nicotine, and tobacco.
> Pharmaceutical interests figured out a way to manufacture synthetic
> P-P cheaply and easily using pyridine carbon rings from inexpensive
> charcoal and petroleum. These companies could not patent tobacco, but
> they could patent synthesized drugs. People have no need for drugs
> when they can grow their own tobacco and stay healthy.
> Niacin is a bogus term. It is a coined name - like canola! It was
> invented by the medical establishment and pharmaceutical interest in
> the 1950's. It was coined to hide the fact that nicotinic acid - the
> acid form of nicotine in dried tobacco) is the active ingredient that
> balances the excesses that bring on pellagra and beriberi.
> Certain interests wanted control over America's health. There was a
> massive effort to vilify tobacco. That effort continues today.
> To create confusion and cover their tracks, the experts divided the
> B-12 vitamin complex into separate vitamin factors, called B-1
> through B-12. They even went so far as to give vitamin B-12 a special
> name-intrinsic factor. You will find this term in all medical and
> nutrition texts. Intrinsic factor MUST be present in gastric juices
> for proper digestion.
> Intrinsic factor is critical to fusion reactions in man's gut and
> liver. Fusion reactions provide us with vitality and energy and are
> part of biological alchemy.  This is 'cold fusion'. Without intrinsic
> factor, pernicious anemia rears it head and the immune system takes a
> nose dive.
> Intrinsic factor is also known as cobalt blue or cobalt 60. Look on a
> vitamin bottle and you will find that vitamin b-12 is called
> 'cyanocobalamin'. Dissected, the word looks like this: cyan-blue,
> cobal-short for cobalt, min-short for amine.
> Cobalt 60 is a naturally occurring radioactive substance that must be
> present in order for life to exist. It is a crucial element in the
> fusion reactions in the bio-electric body of man and animal. It is
> involved in the production of the massive amounts of energy needed to
> keep us alive. Tobacco is loaded with cobalt blue. It is full of the
> B-vitamin complex!...
> A long-term campaign began early in this century to get people to
> stop using tobacco in all form. Today the effort is massive. Tobacco
> has been blamed for every disease condition from lung problems to
> cancer. Tobacco is a scapegoat!
> The truth of the matter is that less expensive, cheaper substances -
> synthetic substances - have been substituted in many tobacco
> products. People have been smoking TOXIC substitutes instead of the
> real thing!
> One reason tobacco is being socially vilified is to cover the
> deleterious side effects of billions of tons of toxic waste chemicals
> being burned in waste incinerators across the USA. Also remember that
> tobacco sold in stores contains several hundred additives and these
> do cause serious problems.
> Tobacco is the perfect cover. The pharmaceuticals, medicine and big
> government are the problem, not tobacco.
> Old time farmers from Tennessee and thereabouts knew that if you
> wanted to have the finest horses in the world, you had to feed them
> tobacco. It seems that people count as much as horses.
> 
> I tried to include the most important parts of this excellent
> article. I think I know what I am going to grow in my garden....
> 
> Paleobest,
> Susan