Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/190

 Among the most valuable treasures of each town was the peace-pipe, which, upon the arrival of a stranger, was filled in his presence with tobacco, and the tobacco ignited; first the chief drew several whiffs and then offered it to the visitor, who, if his intentions were peaceful, accepted it, and after drawing several whiffs in turn passed the pipe to the second most important person of the village. When the adventurers reached Appomattox in the course of their first voyage up the Powhatan, they were confronted on the shore by a werowance, who stood with his bow and arrow in one hand, and a pipe full of tobacco in the other, intending thus to announce that the choice of war or peace was left to the English. During the visit of Smith to the Rappahannock in 1608, four kings on one occasion came to meet him, bearing only pipes and tobacco, and bows and arrows, signifying that the same alternatives were presented for his decision. The tobacco pouch was tied to the belt, but was easily detached. One of the most conspicuous portions of the dress of the conjurer was a bag of the same kind, in which, however, other articles of equal value in his estimation were doubtless carried.

There are many evidences that the aboriginal inhabitants of Virginia were in the full enjoyment of tobacco when the first adventurers arrived in the country. In the course of the earliest interview of the English with them, after the hunger of both parties had been satisfied, this article was proffered the strangers, the Indians themselves smoking it in large clay pipes, with bowls held firmly together by pieces of fine copper. In the subsequent visit to the town of the Rappahannocks, situated on