Mayans Considered It A Divine Plant And Used It For Ritualistic Purposes When did people start smoking tobacco? Tobacco was smoked in the Americas long before its organized cultivation began somewhere around 5000 to 3000 BC. Tobacco use was ceremonial and ritualistic for the natives with the leaf not only being smoked, but also chewed, drunk, taken as snuff and even given as enema. Tobacco was considered as a means of communicating with the supernatural world and was also believed to have medicinal properties. Mayans considered it a divine plant and many Mayan gods are depicted smoking. The name tobacco came from a misunderstanding of the Spaniards who thought the dried leaves were called tobacco when the indigenous name tabaco actually meant the tube or pipe in which the natives smoked the leaves. Tobacco was introduced in the court of Catherine de Medici in 1560 by Jean Nicot. The word nicotine was coined. How did tobacco spread to the rest of the world? Following the