The Anthropology of Tobacco Use: Tobian Data and Theoretical Issues

Abstract

An investigation of tobacco use on the isolated Micronesian island of Tobi provides the basis for a general discussion of the role of tobacco in human societies. Although physiological and psychological variables are attended to, the primary focus is on social and cultural aspects of the tobacco complex. All adult Tobians are heavy smokers; all tobacco is imported; all contacts with the outside world are made to yield tobacco. Nevertheless, periodic tobacco shortages occur. Changes in rates and character of interactions are correlated with fluctuations in tobacco supplies, because tobacco use has deeply penetrated patterns of sociability in a variety of ways. This penetration is a result of the understandings that Tobians have of tobacco, the physiological effects associated with smoking, and certain features of their understandings of the self. A complete explanation of tobacco's attraction for humans, therefore, is seen to depend upon more than the simple notion of tobacco as an "addictive substance;" the social and cultural ends to which its rather amorphous arousal are put must also be investigated.