Ye Olde Forgotten Pipe Term: Kinnikinnick

I have smoked it and can say that is an accurate description

Best not lunt any Kinnikinnick!

Hmmmm remind me to stay away from that blend. A little hardcore for my pallet.

I love these!

Good to know. Enjoying these posts

These are great. Keep them coming. I really like the picture.

Please keep doing these posts! Really enjoying them and the picture makes it even better.

Or maybe that's what the Algonquins gave the colonists to smoke while they lit up their

Dunhill Mixture 965 and quietly laughed to themselves behind inscrutable expressions

of stoicism. Much hilarity back at the hogans later.

This is a great series you got going on oklansas! Truly top-shelf stuff with the illustrations and layout, I think it'd make a smashing 'lil book!
As for the worde Kinnikinnick, I think it'd be better suited for a different definition, since the literal signification is "that which is mixed or mixture", it may more fit in line with describing a "homebrew" blend that one throws together themselves, or perhaps even to signify particularly good tobacco, touching upon the Indian's reverence for the good leaf as well as the spiritual aspects, just a thought. The word rolls off the tongue and has a mellifluous sound.
Variations: kinnik-kinnik,k'nickk'neck,kinnikinik,killikinnick
The olde worde for bad tobacco is

mundungus - malodorous tobacco,bad or rank tobacco, smelly tobacco : from mondongo, a Spanish word signifying tripes, or the uncleaned entrails of a beast, full of filth.
Somewhat related to mundungus would be the word funk, which in the 17th C. meant to smoke, from North French dialect funquier, funquer give off smoke, Old North French fungier -Vulgar Latin fūmicāre, alteration of Latin fūmigāre, but that word has so many different associations and is still in use today. Interestingly, the word was also used by tobacco farmers to signify mold growth : "Tobacco bulked down in “winter order” during the winter months will funk during the months of April and May if not taken up and hung in the barn to dry out."
Then we have sponk -"Once you have a sponk you may cock your organ (light your pipe) and begin to funk". Sponk was a word in Edinburgh which denoted a match, or anything dipt in sulphur that takes fire or literally a spark of fire and that helps explain how the word evolved into the more figurative "spunk".
Then we have tobacconalian, related to bacchanalian:

... after breakfast, and I was seated in my room enjoying the unspeakable luxury of my first pipe, which, with me as with all confirmed tobacconalians, is a very serious event — what the French call a ' solemnity.'


Likewise, one that enjoys strong tobacco could be called a nicotinian.
At the opposite end, we have misocapnist, one who vociferously detests smoking in any form, and can be used as an adjective suchways: Many governments have set forth upon an ironfisted misocapnic crusade.
All fume gallants must raise a cloud!
Lang may your lum reek!
Smoake!

I smoked a bit of Kinnikinnick in college... I always remembered loving the stuff... tasted a bit like tobacco mixed with dried forest leaves... I was a fan. I always smoked it in a MM mini... mmm....

Kinnikinnick is a general term for any of the herbal mixtures. Some are rough but other combos are nice. Like one made.from passion flower, bay, and red clover. But ther are literally thousands of combinations to make kinnikinnick.

I actually have an order out for bearberry and red willow because i dont think they grow around here. I will make kinnikinnick for use at sweatlodges and powwows.

Red willow is bitter, Bearberry is sweet.

It makes for a good meditation preparation for entering a sweat lodge. Remeber to be careful with a sweat lodge one can passout if not use to them.

If fresh cool water pool like a river or lake is not available, a nice big bucket of water outside to or water hose to rinse off afterward will really be handy. It is good to cleanse the body, mind, and spirit.

There's an old movie with Charlton Heston titled "Mountain Man" and there's a seen where the mountain men are sharing a pipe with the Indians, Hestons character lates a long aggressive draw makes this terrible face looks up at the Indian trying not to vomit and says, "what's in this pipe"!? To which the Indian replies "Kinnikinnick" Hestons says, "Tastes like buffalo shit"! The Indian replies very nonchalantly "It is".