Showing posts with label commercialization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commercialization. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Global Commercialization of Tobacco and Cuban Cigars

Tobacco and Cuban cigars are a profitable combo.
The word " cigar " originates from Mayan civilization that used 'sikar' or 'cikar' to mean "smoke". Its major component is tobacco which Mayans traded with fellow Indians from Caribbean islands, including Cuba.
Centuries later, in the midst of European hegemony, tobacco became a valuable cash crop. Mattoon Curtis, in The Book of Snuff and Snuff Boxes (1980), notes that: "Tobacco's first speedy conquest was the maritime world, then the great port cities, and finally the Church and State capitals of the world." 

Different uses of tobacco 
 
Civilizations during pre-Hispanic America were the first cultivators and consumers of tobacco. Between 2000 BC and 987 AC, it was planted in Chiapas, Campeche, Yucanta, Guatemala, and Honduras. Ernesto Montero's Tobacco as a Medication (n.d.), describes how the Mayans, the Aztecs, Brazil's Aracunas, Colombia's Huitotos, and other Native American Indian tribes used it as part of their diet and/or to treat diseases and to ward off insects and pests. Furthermore, according to Curtis (1980), early American Indians used tobacco: