Resources

Documents & Infographics

How to Talk about Traditional Tobacco (PDF)

Cover page of How To Talk About Traditional Tobacco flyer

Wisdom Keepers (Infographic)

Poster titled "Wisdom Keepers" featuring plant, carry, honor, cultivate, grow, know, heal, harvest, connect. #Keep Tobacco Sacred

We are the Seeds (Infographic)

Poster titled "We are the seeds of our ancestors" #Keep Tobacco Sacred

2025 Circle of Cultures Grantees

Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes
United Indian Health Services
Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
Confederated Tribes of Goshute (Sacred Circle Healthcare)
Lumbee Tribe

The foundation of Creating Connections Project: Keeping Tobacco Sacred is based on the two tobacco ways principles 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. Commercial tobacco use is the leading cause of death among AI/AN. Creating Connections honors that there are many Indigenous tobacco traditions, including Peoples that do not use tobacco culturally. This proposed 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/Alaskan Natives communities and individuals. This project will utilize 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. Provide funding to up to six (6) Tribal Nations to implement community-led culturally based initiatives and solutions around traditional tobacco. These grants will support the cultural systems of knowledge practices and principles to generate and implement cultural teachings and stories that lead to community-led solutions. Grantees received training and technical assistance and opportunities to support the sustainability of their community’s traditional tobacco (growing, harvesting, ceremonies, and relationship to traditional medicines and land).

**The Creating Connections Project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Art

Watercolor of native woman tending to young tobacco plans. In the background a beaver depicts the crucial role that the beaver, a water being plays in the environment.
Pisstaahkaan (Tobacco) 9” x 12” watercolor pencil and acrylic paint pen on mixed media paper. 2023.

This drawing uses Blackfoot symbolism and imagery to highlight the important role that pisstaahkaan (tobacco) plays in Blackfoot spirituality, interconnected relationships, and our ceremonial way of life. This image depicts the crucial role that the beaver plays in the woman successfully planting and cultivating tobacco plants. For Blackfoot people, the beaver’s role as a water being teaches us both when and where to plant tobacco in an environment near their habitat.

Coloring Sheets

Artist: Asa Wright

Adult and child, caring for tobacco plant.
Two hands tying a cloth with string.
Line drawing images of dancing man, fish, woven baskets, drummer, two people in a canoe, a deer, and other tools.
Line drawing of a tobacco plant and pipe, with cured tobacco in small cloth pouches, surrounded by a woven rope.

Artist: Evelyn Mikayla Martin

Read Mikayla’s bio

Line drawing of two people smoking tobacco
Line drawing of one person smoking tobacco
Line drawing of a hand cultivating small tobacco plants
Line drawing of beaver and person using tobacco with tobacco flowers and leaves floating above them.

Videos

Tobacco Is Holding You
Our Love Letter To Tobacco
The Life Cycle Of Tobacco
Indigenous Words For Tobacco
The Creating Connections Goal
Keeping Tobacco Sacred

Keeping Tobacco Sacred

Maple Syrup Making by Elder Sharon Day