http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/25188

Some tobacco is sacred for American Indians

By KRISTEN MOUTLON
Salt Lake Tribune
Thursday, July 12, 2007

Gripping a leather pouch in one hand, Rios Pacheco had a seemingly
contradictory message for an Independence Day crowd:

Tobacco is bad, but tobacco also is good.

Pacheco, a member of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, spent
several months this spring helping young tribal members understand the
difference between commercial cigarettes and chewing tobacco, which are bad
for their health, and tobacco used in traditional ceremonies, which is to
be embraced.

"It is a sacred plant. It represents the blessings our ancestors once had,"
Pacheco told a crowd gathered to watch American Indian dancers in Brigham
City's Pioneer Park on July 4.

The Northwestern Band's Keeping Tobacco Sacred program, funded by a $7,500
grant from the Utah Department of Health, is part of a larger statewide
effort to reduce the use of commercial cigarettes and chewing tobacco while
honoring the traditional ceremonial use of tobacco.

One traditional use -- smoking a pinch of tobacco in a pipe -- does not
involve inhaling the smoke.

An estimated 20 percent of adult American Indians in Utah use commercial
tobacco, which is significantly higher than the state's populace as a
whole. Fewer than 12 percent of the overall population smokes or chews
tobacco -- the lowest rate in the nation.

Surveys of Utah high schoolers also have found confusion among American
Indian students about tobacco, said Robin Troxell, health administrator for
the Brigham City-based Northwestern Band.

While they hear the anti-smoking message, she said, they also know that
tobacco rests at the center of many of their sacred ceremonies.

And, at least among the Northwestern Band, there is a further complication:
Many are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which
proscribes smoking or chewing tobacco.

Pacheco said that when devout LDS Shoshones take part in traditional
ceremonies, they regard the tobacco as an offering, a gift, as their
ancestors did. "But they do not take it into their bodies."

On July 4, Pacheco gave a nod to the blending of the cultures. At the same
time he awarded eagle feathers to the three Brigham City youths who
completed his course -- Ty'rheil Bowie, 12; Justin Torrez, 14, and Michael
Pacheco, 19 -- he gave the two who are LDS books on baptism and the
church's Aaronic Priesthood.

Bowie said he previously thought all tobacco was bad.

"Not all of it is," he said. "Sacred tobacco helps. It heals wounds. You
offer it to the water, the air, the Great Spirit. . . . In smoking the
pipe, we're offering it up to the Great Spirit."

As part of the class, the boys researched the traditions of various tribes.
While it is often smoked in ceremonies of thanksgiving and entreaty, and
given as a gift, tobacco also was used as medicine.

Many Indians turned to tobacco to ease the pain of toothaches and earaches,
Pacheco noted, and to help those with thyroid problems.

"It is a gift. It is not to be sold," said Pacheco, who holds that the only
tobacco fit for ceremonial use is that grown organically. Commercial
tobacco, he said, is laced with too many added chemicals.

"That is not a gift; that is just something you use for selfish reasons."

(Reach Kristen Moulton at kmoulton(at)sltrib.com )