MUSCOGEE TOBACCO: SACRED SMOKE
Breckinridge, a Muscogee (Creek) Nation tribal member, has grown
noncommercial tobacco on his family's Creek allotment land for
about 16 years. He has developed a strain that he calls
"Muscogee Tobacco." He grows more than 10 pounds of
noncommercial tobacco a year in a garden plot no bigger than the
back end of a pickup.
He points to tobacco seeds that sit in a ceramic bowl. The
tobacco seeds make coffee grounds look sizable.
"This whole bowl could grow about 640 acres of tobacco," he
said. "Tobacco is wonderfully hearty and relatively easy to
grow, once you know what to do with it."
He laments that the traditional use of tobacco has been all but
forgotten by the public, who associate tobacco with the marketed
cigarettes that come 20 to a pack.
