Our Love Letter to Tobacco

Tobacco is sacred for many American Indians.  It is an inherent gift from the Creator. Tobacco is part of our everyday life when we wake up to a new day, an offering to an elder, a prayer, a request, and gratitude for all that surrounds us.

This short video is Our Love Letter to Tobacco with words shared by our Wisdom Keepers, Rowen White and Gene Tagaban. One seed, one plant, we invite all generations as we focus and honor keeping tobacco sacred.

Lifecycle of Tobacco

Wisdom keepers gather the people through blessings, songs, and storytelling. Wisdom Keepers do these through many ways.  Our Creating Connections project focus and purpose is to honor our cultural systems of knowledge that is inclusive of all ancestors, living and future generations. We strive to understand the purpose of life, traditional teaching values, and belonging through relationships. When you step outside, think about what was in the sky? What flew in the sky? What song did they sing?  Step into it. Imagine it. Create it.

Creating Connections Project Statement

The foundation of Creating Connections Project: Keeping Tobacco Sacred is based on the two tobacco ways principle that honor the original intention of traditional tobacco. This principle honors tobacco as a traditional and sacred gift from the Creator to be used for cultural and spiritual purposes. This project is dedicated to the principles of restorative Indigenous cultural health practices and acknowledges the continued historical imbalance in the health status of American Indians/Alaska Native communities and individuals.  This project utilizes culturally-based approaches to gather, create, and disseminate tobacco control efforts and strengthen the foundation and understanding of how culture plays a vital role in seeing tobacco as traditional.

Indigenous Words for Tobacco

In the first two years of the Creating Connections project, through our Traditional Tobacco Gathering of Native Americans (GONA), we have learned so many words for tobacco in many Indigenous languages.  A Lot of the words you see reflected in this video have translations beyond the word tobacco.  We encourage you all to visit with the local tribal communities you reside on or near and learn about the ancestral homelands you are on and their traditional words for tobacco.