[Aztlan] 'Warding-Off' Snakes With Tobacco

[Karen Bassie]

In a December 2 posting, I described the elopement story that is 
recorded in the Q'eqchi, Poqomchi', K'iche', Mopan, Achi' and Kaqchikel 
areas (Gordon 1915; H. Dieseldorff 1966; Thompson 1930:126-32, 
1971:363-67; Jessup and Simpson 1936; R. Redfield 1945; Mayer 1958; 
Quirín 1974; Shaw 1971; Cruz Torres 1965; Maxwell 1980:60-66; Colby and 
Colby 1981:180-83; Búcaro Moraga 1991; R. Wilson 1995:327-28; Akkerran 
2000:233-235). Tobacco plays a major role in this story. In the story, 
the warrior Thorn Broom fell in love with the corn and weaving goddess 
Basket Grass who was the daughter of Xucaneb. He tried to impress her by 
passing by her house each day with a deer skin filled with grass, seeds 
and ash to give the impression that he was a great hunter. When he 
slipped on the mud she had created from her nixtamal washing, the skin 
burst open and his deception was revealed. The tobacco seed from the 
deer skin soon grew into a flowering plant, and Thorn Broom returned in 
the guise of a hummingbird. He began to sip the nectar, and Basket Grass 
was so delighted with the bird she asked her father to shoot it so she 
could copy its design in her weaving. Eventually she placed the dead 
bird in her bosom, and retired for the night. During the night, Thorn 
Broom revived, transform back into human form and seduced Basket Grass. 
They then eloped, but Xucaneb sent a thunderbolt god to kill them. As 
the dark cloud of the thunderbolt approached, Thorn Broom and Basket 
Grass were at the shore of a lake, and they borrowed a turtle shell and 
crab shell so they could dive underwater to escape. Thorn Broom managed 
to escape, but Basket Grass was killed. Thorn Broom gathered her remains 
that were floating on the water, and put them into 13 jars. He then went 
to made amends with Xucaneb. When he returned, he opened the first jar 
and discovered the remains of his wife in this container had turned into 
snakes. Various other insects, worms, lizards, spiders, scorpions, 
caterpillars and toads were in the other jars, but he found his restored 
wife in the thirteenth jar. Although glossed over in most versions, one 
of the stories explains that Thorn Broom dumped the contents of the 
first 12 jars into a canoe filled with water and crushed tobacco leaves. 
Braakhuis (2005) noted that this tobacco was the source of the venom now 
found in these animals. The word may is used for both tobacco and poison 
especially venom (Burkitt 1902:449). These noxious animals then escaped 
into the world.

Thorn Broom sucking at the tobacco flower was a metaphor for the sexual 
intercourse between Thorn Broom and Basket Grass. In this metaphor, she 
was the tobacco flower. The notion that a female represented the tobacco 
flower is parallel to the Central Mexican belief that their goddess of 
the Milky Way called Citlalinicue "star skirt" had a tobacco plant 
manifestation. In Mesoamerica, tobacco was used as a remedy for 
illnesses, and it was used to protect and kill (Roys 1931:259; Thompson 
1971:103-123; Robicsek 1978; Berlin, Breedlove and Raven 1974:445; 
Laughlin 1975:241, Sahagun 1959-63 Book 11:83). The first K'iche' 
lineage heads were given a tobacco pouch as part of their symbols of 
office. As a cure for various illnesses, the healer places tobacco 
powder in his mouth, and then sprays it on the face or body of the 
patient (Wisdom 1940:349). One can overcome a snake or sorcerer by 
spraying or throwing tobacco, and ground tobacco is still carried in a 
gourd to protect against sorcery. These uses of tobacco suggest that it 
was thought to be a kind of venom that could be used to counteract other 
sources of venom. In a curing recorded by Burkitt (1902:447), the healer 
refers to the bolay snakes causing the illness, and states that they got 
their poison from the canoe of Xbalanke (Thorn Broom of the elopement 
story) (Braakuis 2005). As noted, the ic bolay was the first snake 
manifestation of Xucaneb's daughter to emerge from the jar, and the 
source of its venom was the tobacco in the canoe (one of her plant 
manifestations).

            The Maya believe that the breath of a snake is deadly 
(Fought 1972:85; R. Wilson 1972:71), so the act of the healer spraying 
tobacco juice on a patient would be mimicking the snake breathing or 
spitting venom. But how does this cure rather than harm the patient? It 
would seem that the healer/snake directs his tobacco spray/breath at the 
illness (the soul of the sorcerer causing the illness), rather than the 
soul of the patient. Nuñez de la Vega described sixteenth century 
Tzeltal and Tzotzil healers who applied their medicines by blowing on 
their patients to cure them (Brinton 1894:19). One of the consequences 
of chewing tobacco is yellow staining of the mouth and teeth. A physical 
relationship between the ic bolay (fer-de-lance) and tobacco is that the 
fer-de-lance has a yellow throat (the female fer-de-lance is called aj 
k'an k'ok'o). The word k'anti is a general term for any venomous snake, 
but the word literally means "yellow mouth". The Q'eqchi' name for a 
healer who cures snake bite is aj k'anti which literally means "he of 
the yellow mouth" (Braakhuis 2005:182).
Karen Bassie