Norton,
Marcy Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A
History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2008.
Marcy
Norton is an established historian of Atlantic History and Spanish History in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sacred
Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic
World is the culmination of her studies and won the best book award from
the Association for the Study of Food and Society. Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures seeks to clarify a history of
tobacco and chocolate and reveals the repercussions the two New World
commodities had in the European world. Norton discusses what it meant for
Europeans to consume tobacco and chocolate when knowledge abounded that the two
were enmeshed in nearly every aspect of pagan savages in the New World.
Finally, Norton sheds light on how Europeans adapted tobacco and chocolate into
their economy and lives. Europeans developed their own unique cultural meanings
of tobacco and chocolate and would, with time, embrace the two goods.
Norton begins by explaining the use and significance of tobacco
and chocolate to the Native Americans in the New World. Aztec, Mayan, and other
Mesoamerican groups were bound together in their common usage of tobacco and
chocolate. Chocolate beans were used as a common form of currency throughout Central
Mexico. Tobacco and chocolate were woven into rites that conveyed social
differentiation based on bloodlines and battlefield skill. Also, tobacco and
chocolate expressed ties that Mesoamerican peoples considered binding to
divinity. In consuming tobacco and chocolate, humans could achieve corporeal
states similar to those experienced by their gods. Tobacco and chocolate
anchored, enriched, and defined many social and religious rituals. The two quintessentially
American goods could be found involved in betrothals, homecomings, intermission
after meals, as tributes to gods, childbirth, and many more Mesoamerican activities.
The next step in the evolution of tobacco and chocolate
as world commodities was the encounters Spanish conquistadors had with
Mesoamericans who consumed the substances. While the initial encounters had no
special significance, Norton contends that many conquistadors, such as Hernán Cortéz, wizened to the
social importance placed in and around tobacco and chocolate. Another example
is Galetto Cey, an Italian trader who had to rely on Native American guides who
insisted on conducting a tobacco ceremony before beginning an expedition. In
the context of diplomacy and need, Cortéz and Cey participated in chocolate rituals in order to get
the assistance of Native Americans that was relied upon for Imperial purposes.
Norton explains the stereotypes tobacco and chocolate
would be known by, several lasting for centuries. Tobacco was associated with
simple savagery and native depravity. There was a close association of tobacco
and its smoke with the devil and sorcery. On the other hand, chocolate was
associated with the highly evolved civilizations of Mexico. The beverage was
considered a decadence. The recipes and the methods of preparation were looked
at as art forms, with precise steps and ingredients. Even Spanish historian and
writer Gonzalo Fernández de
Oviedo y Valdés saw chocolate as acceptable for consumption because of its
medicinal qualities.
The process of how tobacco and chocolate impacted and
imprinted imperial Europe began as the Spanish overlaid colonial institutions
onto existing social, political, and economic structures. Religious tributes
involving tobacco and chocolate continued, political and ecclesiastical
jurisdictions were built upon standing indigenous political units, and Catholic
churches were constructed on top of demolished pagan temples. Norton asserts
that tobacco and chocolate survived because the new Spanish regime was erected on
top of the substratum of native society. Tobacco and chocolate became the link
to past traditions and allowed their adaptation to new settings. Pre-colonial
traditions could be remade to serve new rulers and new divinities.
Sacred Gifts,
Profane Pleasures explains how European acculturation to native ways,
especially the acquired tastes for tobacco and chocolate, led to the suffusion
of tobacco and chocolate into mestizo society. Many who became aficionados of
tobacco and chocolate in the New World maintained the habit when upon their
return to Europe. Norton contends that very early on in Spanish Imperialization
conquistadores recognized cacao as a valuable commodity. Cacao was an immediate
colonial commodity because of its value as a long-distance trade good before
Spanish conquest. Tobacco was not seen as a valuable colonial commodity until
later.
Once tobacco and chocolate leapt across the Atlantic
Ocean, Europeans struggled with how to reconcile the use of the two
commodities. Could a European consume tobacco and chocolate without implicating
themselves in native idolatry? Nicolás Monardes was the first university-trained
doctor to systematically consider American materia medica. With respect to
tobacco, his drawings and writings offer clear insight into the European debate
over the beneficial uses of the herb, and the impressions that its use was linked
to idolatry. For Monardes, tobacco used medically was properly European, and tobacco
used for other purposes was not acceptably European. However, chocolate was
received in Europe differently than tobacco. At times, chocolate was juxtaposed
to other regional beverages and considered acceptable for consumption. Many writers
attempted to excuse the use of chocolate.
Sacred Gifts,
Profane Pleasures documents the time period that tobacco and
chocolate began to have a firm social and commercial foothold on the Iberian Peninsula.
Norton argues that commodification of tobacco and chocolate was the result of the
growing European demand for the goods. Tobacco entered through the wealthy and
well-connected merchant class, along with the lower-class mariner community.
Elite Spaniards were the earliest and most frequent buyers of chocolate. Clergy
members, titled aristocrats, families of officials, and professionals all
imported tobacco and chocolate. Similar to the cultural roles tobacco played in
the New World, Europeans easily created social situations for people to consume
tobacco. In the same way that tobacco was once sacred to the Indians, it also
became sacred to Old World consumers. Sensory sensations, such as the
practices, habits, and tastes of tobacco were maintained even across the
Atlantic Ocean.
In no other place are the enduring legacies of tobacco
and chocolate more pronounced than seventeenth-century art. Norton points to
the Barcelona tile painting as evidence of the powerful rite of sociability surrounding
the manufacture of chocolate and its consumption. In the painting, chocolate
conveys sumptuous refinement and the nobility and high status of chocolate
consumers. Also conveyed in the painting, chocolate portrays intimacy of an
erotic nature. David Teniers the Younger’s painting, Peasants Smoking in an Inn (1640), illustrates the shared change in mood and consciousness that
unifies the smokers depicted. An onlooker is seen on the periphery eagerly looking
on to joining the other smokers’ altered states.
Tobacco and chocolate soon became fundamental staples of
the Atlantic trade network. Spanish royal officials worked to monopolize
tobacco, which mandated the procurement, processing, and sale of tobacco to be
the exclusive right of the Spanish government. Through the use of leases within
the royal tobacco monopoly, the commodities brought in substantial revenues and
increased the importance and power of the Spanish state. Spain used its new
trade leverage to expand its domain domestically. Norton argues that the
fiscalization of tobacco and chocolate affected their cultural meanings.
Instead of the medicine Monardes had envisioned, tobacco and chocolate became
the first mass luxuries.
Finally, Catholic Spain had to contend with the problems
of tobacco and chocolate consumption during Catholic rituals. Would tobacco
consumption interfere with communion? If used by holy people or in holy places,
would chocolate be considered sacrilege? Through the Catholic Church’s reform
program, tobacco was made to be seen as the same as all sins, no better and no
worse. This validated the sacrament and reduced the threat of tobacco. Next,
Catholics considered chocolate and its potential to violate an ecclesiastical
fast. This particular issue was heavily debated among Spaniards of many
professions. With no papal bull to direct Catholics, the pope laughed chocolate
off as a strange Indian drink.
Eventually, smoking tobacco became the dominant form of
ingestion. Norton argues that tobacco smoking led to opium smoking. While
Europeans connoted smoking tobacco with diabolically inspired idolators, Asian
countries eschewed a friendliness towards smoking. Norton is also quick to
point out that the social rites surrounding chocolate drinking inspired the use
of tea and coffee. Mesoamerican tobacco and chocolate consumers would not
recognize the world commodities that today we know as cigarettes and Hershey’s
kisses.
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