Carolyn McDowall 2010

‘Study the past if you would define the future’ Chinese Philosopher & Reformer Confucius (551BC-479BC)

Eighteenth Century French Snuff Box Courtesy V & A Museum, London

Sniffing snuff was an original method of taking tobacco, first used by American Indians. Europeans became interested in the practice when Christopher Columbus reputedly first noticed the Chinese sniffing a mysterious powder during his second voyage of discovery (1494-6) and brought the substance back to Europe.

Early records suggest that both the church and the state favoured the use of snuff, i.e. tobacco ground to a fine powder with herbs and spices added to enhance the aroma and increase the flavour over smoking tobacco. Especially after early experiments at prohibiting its import failed.

The Portuguese arrived by sea on the coastline of China first in 1514. Within a decade establishing trade agreements with officials through the port of Macao and bringing tobacco into Europe. The English and Dutch followed and by the mid 1600’s trade with Cathay for many of its goods was brisk with mariners and merchants plying their trade in an ever-expanding western commercial world.

For a long time the cost meant snuff was only taken by the elite in Europe. In salons in which polite conversation was cultivated gatherings were constantly punctuated by the sound of sneezing. Gradually the self-induced sneeze became a new ‘affect’ the aristocracy could use to distinguish themselves from everyone else. To sneeze haphazardly was not sufficient: the sneeze had to make an impact and in a setting that the protagonist would be noticed.

So sneezing became an essential aspect of a connoisseur’s conversation. It was a communication of a kind described as a bored man’s punctuation. It was indulged in whenever one desired to show disapproval or a lack of interest in a subject under discussion.  As a result, anything ‘not to be sneezed at’ indicated that the conversation was perversely worthwhile.

Carolyn McDowall 2010

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