Normally as a rule, caretakers emerge as singular and whole - there is really only ever one at a time. However, as we have seen from the birthing of new plants from the One Great Tree, what constitutes a singular unified individual can sometimes come in divisible parts. So too is the case with Man and Woman; when these two companions were born, although they did not come into the world together, they were always two halves of one. When they worked together as caretakers, they had a tendency to complete each other's movements, not quite working in tandem necessarily but any action was carried out as a two-part process. While they did not share a body, they shared a motion. Man and Woman were not born to love one another as much as they were born to work together: the loving came from the work really. And they never worked better than when they were working for and with Tree. It was in this way that over time, they grew more and more entangled in one another, and their limbs and roots (their heads and their feet) became more intertwined, inseparable. However, their inseparability did not always guarantee peace - even when something is perceived as one whole, like a singular body, it is not always at peace with itself. Heads and hearts and hands and feet can be in turmoil, they can fight each other, want to go in different directions. This is when the shared process of Man and Woman's movements can lead to a kind of upheaval; they must always work together, even when they are not quite getting along. Such was the case one day when they had to care for Tree's soil: when trying to decide what offering was appropriate, what gift to the soil would suit Tree's needs, Man and Woman could not agree. Man kept saying that dead matter was the way to go: food scraps and things that would decay. Woman insisted that the sacrifice should be something living: like worms wriggling, they that would contribute in their own way. Really, they were both right, and as usual either could only offer their half of a whole truth; this they should have known, but harmony isn't always what is required of us.
Man and Woman fought and fought and fought over who was right and whose offering to Tree and soil should be given, and in this way they expressed discordance well into the night. When the stars came out, and they were still not of one mind, they grew drowsy and lay down on the moist dark ground. For a minute they were still arguing, still having it out, as they lay there gently whispering their pieces - their tone was soft while their words were strong, until they both decided to let it alone. At this they started to move together again, and left the discordance behind while their motions worked to smooth the ground beneath the midnight sky. They moved and merged together and with the ground. Man and Woman hadn't imagined that this, their greatest rift, would unify them into the other side of this, their most lasting caretaking act. At some point between the darkness of night and lightness of day, their two bodies became truly indistinguishable as their matter mixed in with the soil. In this way they fertilized the ground with each other, and when the sun shone on the spot where they lay, a young tobacco plant sprouted to greet the day.
This is why the tobacco plant is crucial - it ties people together as it was born from a tie between two people. It's blessed as an offering of peace, of well-meaning, of care and consideration even in turbulent weather. And it came from the separation and reunification of two halves, two wholes: the accord from the discord.