Smoking Traditions of Tamriel: Morrowind

For the final portion of our study of the Smoking habits of the peoples of Tamriel, we arrive at my home province, Morrowind. The Dunmer are among the oldest smokers in Tamriel, with traditions that can be traced back to pre-Velothi times. This aged tradition, coupled with cultural exchange, has led to a rich and varied tradition in which the Dunmer do what we do best: absorbing things from others and refining and perfecting them to suit our tastes.

I would be remiss without first mentioning the queen of pipes, the Nargile. A waterpipe similar to the Khajiiti Huqqa, but of much more refined elegance. The Nargile consists of a blown glass bottle and a metal stem, with a leather hose for smoking and a clay bowl to hold the Jurak. The bottle is filled halfway with water, and then the stem is placed in and affixed with the hose. The clay bowl is filled with jurak, a paste made from sugared tobacco, fruit, and spices, and then a small clay plate is placed atop the jurak, upon which large chunks of red-hot charcoal are laid.

Among the Redoran and Telvanni houses, these pipes are richly decorated in a way that reflects Dunmeri sensibilities,often incorporating natural, flowing asymmetric forms in their design. Figural forms of Daedra, Tribunes, or important ancestors are frequently incorporated into the shape of the pipe. To these people, the smoking of the pipe is a casual social affair, shared among family and close friends in the playing of games or quiet conversation.

Both the Hlaalu and Indoril favor Nargile with more conservative, symmetric, understated designs. These are often made with stems of cast brass or turned wood and tend to feature deep engravings of a more geometric or botanical form. For the people of these houses, the Nargile’s social role takes on a higher purpose, often a pipe is shared during business transactions, usually with the selling party offering his finest Jurak in order to ingratiate himself with his guest and ensure a polite transaction.

House Dres favors Nargile of finely worked brass and precious metals, often with rich filigrees and finely carved details. These pipes are often the most ostentatious of all smoking instruments, encrusted with precious stones and minute embellishment. Dres landowners can frequently be seen lounging on the patios of their villas, eating fresh fruit and puffing away while the slaves toil in the fields.

The Ashland tribes favor Nargile as well, though their pipes are often of more rough construction, typically with bottles made of corkbulb and stems fashioned of hollow insect legs. These pipes will sometimes feature the skull of an important ancestor in the design. Sharing a pipe has an important social function among the Ashlanders, and the preparation of the pipe has taken on an almost ritual status. Given the relative scarcity of clean water in the Ashlands, it is customary for visitors to each provide a small portion of their own water in filling the bottle, their own tobacco in loading the bowl, and their own charcoal in lighting it. In this way, the smoke is a seen as a more communal experience, with everyone sharing and partaking together.

The Jurak used in the Dunmeri Nargile is a mixture of very finely-chopped tobacco (usually several types with complementary flavors), minced fruit, perfumed oils, insect pheromones, molasses, honey, and aromatic herbs and spices. This produces a black, gritty paste roughly the consistency of good moist potting soil. The end result is usually sweetly flavored with an intense, spicy, and complicated mix of flavors.

Every house has their own style of Jurak, with Hlaalu preferring a sweeter, more playful smoke with a heavy influence from fruit. Redoran Juraks tend to contain heavy earthy flavors of Saffron and medicinal herbs. Telvanni enjoy strong, spicy flavors with an emphasis on Cardamom and Sandalwood. Indoril use a lot of cedar, sage, and lemongrass in their blends. Finally, the Dunmer of House Dres prefer a more tobacco-forward flavor, with the spice and fruit flavors taking a complementary role to the strong, peppery tobacco. It is rumored that Lord Vivec himself favors Jurak of the Redoran style, and in recent years it has become fashionable among young Redoran pilgrims to leave a small amount of Tobacco at his temple door when visiting the shrine.

The Temple priests will often use Nargile in their off-hours to relax and discuss theology. These pipes are typically of Indoril make, with pipemakers of that house frequently donating their Nargile as a sign of deference to temple authority. Temple priests will also smoke long handheld bugshell pipes during Sermons or lectures, usually loaded with Khlou, a uniquely Dunmeri mixture of fine Argonian blackleaf tobacco and Hackle-lo leaf, which has been infused with Pomegranate juice and pressure-fermented, giving the tobacco blend a mild, sweet flavor.

Khlou has become somewhat popular outside of the temple during the Third Era, with its energizing and invigorating effects making it popular among laborers. Plantation owners have also caught on and will sometimes “gift” large volumes of the blend to their slaves, as a perceived reward for hard work. The reward is, in fact, a double-edged blade, as the smoke’s metabolic effect allows the slaves to work longer, harder hours before tiring.

The Vehks’hadoon are a somewhat obscure sect of wandering ascetics devoted to the worship of Lord Vivec and the understanding of his sermons. These Mer wander Vvardenfell, and own little in the way of worldly possessions, dressing simply in scarves and loincloths, and travel in bands of 6-10 mer, preaching the sermons and living only off of the food that is offered to them, or what they can scavenge from the land. The reason for their inclusion in this treatise is their practice of smoking Jubeedi, a mixture of powerful psychotropic herbs. The Jubeedi is smoked through a pipe made from the thighbones of deceased Vehks’hadoon, carved into the shape of a spear or phallus, the bowl of which is invariably carved into the shape of a merish vulva. The Jubeedi is lit from a brazier of sacred fire which must be kept burning at all times. Should the sacred fire go out, the band must immediately make a pilgrimage to Vivec city to relight it. In the canalworks of the St. Olms Canton is a tiny shrine, the only Vehks’hadoon temple, where sits the sacred brazier, burning with fire gifted to the sect by Lord Vivec hirself, from hir own burning head. This fire has not gone out since it was first lit in the early second era.

The effects of Jubeedi are fast and long lasting, causing the smoker to fall almost immediately into a torporous stupor, in which they experience vivid lucid dreams. The Vehks’hadoon believe this state of mind to be the closest a mortal can achieve to understanding how the Lord Tribune hirself sees the world, and that through regular imbibement of the drug, they themselves can become closer to Lord Vivec.