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From Shamanism To Shame - The Cultural Story Of Smoke

18/3/2026

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From Shamanism To Shame - The Cultural Story Of Smoke

We all know that cigarette smoke is harmful to your health. Prolonged exposure can lead to several deadly illnesses. It’s also highly addictive, meaning that even though you know it’s dangerous, you still want to do it. We live a lot longer these days, and when it became apparent that people who smoked died younger on average, we began to wake up to the facts. Of course, big business wanted to do what they could to hide them or spin them another way. Did you know that once Philip Morris Tobacco did a study into how much money a government would save in pension, housing and extra healthcare costs when smokers died young? It was rejected outright and they apologised. Now cigarette packets carry health warnings and smoking is banned in contained public spaces. People who openly smoke are often judged as immoral or stupid, and the smell can be interpreted as a sign of neglect.

Where did it all begin, why do we do it, and what was the original idea behind it? Smoke as a substance has a quality of the ever-changing and mysterious. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to begin seeing shapes, signs, and motifs within the billows. It likely began with a fire, placing leaves on the flames gave rise to different qualities and colours of smoke. Inhaling these fumes brought about subtle changes in consciousness that eventually became the reason for direct smoking apparatus such as pipes. Smudging – the act of ritual cleansing a space with fragrant smoke, incense, smoke signals, and inhaling all became tools for ritual and ceremony, placing the essence of smoke firmly within the culture.

The earliest historical evidence of smoking comes from the Maya. In their surviving images, smoking is shown to be a tool for communicating with gods. A spiritual medium, the influence of the chemical changes in the body and the imagination paired with inkblot style smoke patterns gave rise to shamanism and divination. These records date back to around 250AD. This is a long time before cigarettes and vice, in these earliest times, smoking was seen as a spiritual tool and a cultural activity that built social groups and shared narratives. The three dominant symbols in smoke that appear in the evidence are communication with spirits and the divine with its random shapes and movements, cleansing with its ability to expand into any space and touch each area, and transformation with smoke rising from matter and entering the sky. These qualities still resonate today with many spiritual practices maintaining these principles.

The Maya and other indigenous tribes in America, where Tobacco naturally grows, didn’t keep their secret forever. When Europeans ventured over the Atlantic in the 16th and 17th Centuries, they began to uncover the vast landscape and the cultures its people shared. Commodities such as rubber, potatoes, tomatoes, chilli peppers, maize or sweetcorn, and chocolate all gradually found their way to the European market. These as well as tobacco, of course. By the time the settlements had established themselves, Europe and the pilgrims who stayed enjoyed a vastly improved range of food and luxuries. Our culture and that of the native peoples didn’t mix well, however, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience for anyone at the time.

Smoking can be seen to enter mainstream European culture during the Dutch Golden Age of Painting. These 17th century painters from the Netherlands saw smoking as a tool for expression and were one of the first groups to include it in their schemes. Iconic painters such as Frans Hals, Adriaen Brouwer, Jan Steen, Gerrit Dou, Gabriel Metsu, David Teniers the Younger, and Hendrick Sorgh all depicted smoking in their works at various times. The two symbols they used it to communicate were Vanitas, which is fleeting pleasure, transcendence and mortality, and Realism, where it was used to show the gritty reality of life in the towns and cities. This dualism of its significance lingers even today. At the crossroads between high society and low society, the artistic device became a symbol that could point in either direction.

What began in a clique of like-minded painters soon outgrew its pot and became widespread across the continent. Smoking and its apparatus began to appear in artworks from many different artists, each with their own sense of direction and muse. The primary symbolism of mystery and allure plus grime and common life still maintained its fascination through its evolution from Dutch beginnings. Cigarettes began to appear during the 17th and 18th centuries. Rolling tobacco was another option to the pipe and for some, it was the preferred method. A less cumbersome and more lightweight method, the cigarette soon appeared in art. It was used to distinguish a bohemian style, differing from the ornate curve of the wooden or clay pipe. A cigarette can be bent, half smoked, or perfectly straight and delicate looking. It had a lot of character for art, as a new and interesting device.

The art world began to explore the dynamic between smoking and morality, as it was becoming ever clearer that it was detrimental to the health. The act of smoking in art became symbolic for rebellion and rejection of social pressure. It gave rise to a sense of aesthetic self-destruction that opened the door for absurdist and nihilistic forms in later years. During the 18th Century, the shamanic origins of smoking began to reappear in the form of personal introspection. Smoking became identified with deep thought and stress relief, providing a relaxed state of mind and an ability to clear one’s head for thinking. The smoking thinker became a symbol of its own during this period. A prop that set one apart, cigarettes and smoking in general grew into a sign of exception and creative thought.

The 20th Century saw the onset of film and photography in a big way, and as a commonplace idea in art already, smoking quickly found its way into these media too. The women’s liberation movement began to push back against social expectations for women, and many glamourous ladies openly smoked. It had previously been seen as a man’s past time, with many men finding it unsightly. Thankfully, women don’t exist for the benefit of men, and they chose to do what they wanted to. Cigars and cigarettes became the main source of tobacco smoke with pipes becoming a niche or old-fashioned method. Showing a pipe in art began to show something deeper than just a person who smokes. It became a person of a type who smokes, the same was for cigars and their smaller counterparts. Tobacco branding soon caught on, and knowing you could tell a lot about a person from what they smoke, they capitalised on this by presenting their products in all manner of ways.

Cinema and photography highlighted the creative angst of smoking and used the device as a tool for expressing emotion. A posture, a state of mind, and a facial expression combined with a cigarette could embellish the story much further. For high-class and low-class situations alike, the smoking symbol gave rise to sensation and character. Cigarettes became a tool for seduction, a woman gently pulling on her cigarette then exhaling the smoke became a widely used symbol in film to deliver a sense of desire and sexual innuendo. Later, cigarettes were used to describe a sense of being cool. People would stand in their fashionable clothes, and they would have a packet of branded cigarettes somewhere. Colour film put this into perspective as the various styles carried recognisable designs. Blue jeans, black leather, and Marlboro Reds seem to have been the go-to look for the likeable rebel. That Philip Morris gets everywhere.

In later cinema, smoking expanded its social commentary as the public awareness about its toxicity became well-known. Because it has been practiced for centuries already and had been ingrained in the culture, it was not going to disappear because it was unhealthy. People who smoked despite knowing its downsides began to carry a different narrative. For some it became a symbol of control and emotional distance. It put a shield up between one and the other and gave the impression they couldn’t care less about right and wrong. On another level, it was used to demonstrate vulnerability and susceptibility to control. It became synonymous with stress and fatigue, hard work, and unsurmountable odds. From police station interviews and criminal conspiracies to high-class lawyers and distinguished government officials, smoking remained a dominant force in the world of symbolism and narrative.

Although the tobacco industry undoubtedly funded the use of smoking in major films and art, the substance and action have clear virtues when used as a scene setting device in film. The movement of smoke against a still background provides a free cinematography acted by the universe itself in a cameo role. All you have to do is put a lit cigarette in an ashtray and film it. You get a few seconds of intrigue and a build up for something much more illuminating. The holding of a device, like a pen but designed to give pleasure and to administer slow poison, also points to a significant mental frame. To hold the cigarette gives the individual an action and a posture, it gives an emotional background that becomes written on their face. Sometimes you can tell a non smoker who is being asked to smoke for the camera, they make subtle signs that they are not enjoying it or enjoying it a little too much.

Contemporary music famously used cigarettes and smoking in lyrics, album art, music videos, and photography. The rebel spirit that was nurtured in the 18th Century using cigarettes still flows even today with certain genres of music. Modern art has a different relationship to smoke than it did in the 20th Century. It’s now a faux pas to light one up indoors or to blow smoke into someone’s personal space. Buying cigarettes has become a cabinet and a knowledge thing, with no displays or advertising allowed. You must know exactly what you want. The packets are all the same drab olive-green colour, no symbolism of brand now. It is different in other countries, and it’s still a relevant symbol for art even in the UK where it’s deemed even immoral.

Modern painters use smoke to explore many aspects of nature, including the traditional ones of transcendence and transformation, mysticism and divination. Smoke has become synonymous with a certain age, industry and less enlightened times. It has also become a medium itself with smoke artists using it to create abstract and inventive phenomena. It maintains its creative allure as a dialogue between breathing and poisoning, transition from one form to another, meditation and inspiration. It’s used to display one’s sense of inner contradiction and troubled mental state, and it can still be used to look cool and classy when done in the correct and traditional way.

Of course, the decline in the desire to smoke and the upsurge of vaping has changed the dynamic once more. Vapes are becoming mentioned in lyrics, they’re turning up in drama and theatre, and it looks like they might soon be taxed like tobacco. The fact that people choose to vape who do not smoke points to that timeless desire to take part in an activity that transcends one’s own lifetime and culturally links us directly to people from long ago. The action of taking breath and feeling an effect is clearly rewarding for some and provided It’s done with harmless vapours and in moderation, it’s not yet been shown to be harmful. Perhaps a water-based vaping might emerge someday, that is as harmless as breathing a flavoured raincloud.

Make sure to read the latest book from the author of Alternative Fruit: Parenting Superintelligence: From Code to Conscience by Rowan B. Colver

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