What is a pipe – Part 1

Early last year I purchased a used copy of William Goldring’s “The Pipe Book: A History and How To.” While certainly not one of the best books written on tobacco pipes, it is of interest for the excellent historical overview that it provides. He begins with a description by Herodotus (484-425 BC) of a Scythian tribe that would burn the leaves of a certain tree and breath in the smoke from the fire in order to become intoxicated. What was being smoked by these Eurasian nomads is unknown, but there are a wide variety of plants that where smoked throughout the world prior to the cultivation of tobacco (betel leaves, lion’s tail, cannabis, etc). While not strictly relevant to the history of tobacco pipes, The thought of someone inhaling smoke from a fire and realizing that they could inhale more of said smoke if it were burning in some sort of an enclosure with a tube to funnel the smoke into the mouth is easy to imagine as the impetus behind the first pipe.

The earliest accounts of this someone trying to optimize smoke inhalation involve the “earth smokers” of Africa and Asia. A hole was dug in the earth, and a small mound formed in which the leaves of choice were placed and lit on fire. A reed or some other mandrel was placed in the mound so that after the soil was packed it could be removed leaving a small tube-like tunnel through which smoke could be inhaled.

Eventually someone figured out that a longer reed would allow the smoker to sit upright and smoke from the earthen pipe thus providing a bit more comfort for the smoker. And being a social creature, it was not long until folks began inserting multiple reeds into the mound so that friends could (quite literally) share a bowl.

While this is obviously not the most convenient means of smoking, even the basic earth smoker pipe includes all of the components of the modern day tobacco pipe: a combustion chamber, and an airway. In fact, all pipes can be reduced to the concept of two intersecting tubes, one in which the tobacco is burned, and another through which the smoke is drawn.

These tubes can take on a myriad of geometries and be surrounded by many different material, but in essence the thing that we call a pipe is just a physical boundary surrounding and containing the two tubes. But of course, the choice of materials, the engineering of the geometries, and the beauty of the physical boundaries make all the difference. In future installments we will explore these aspects of the modern pipe and try to understand what makes for a good smoker.