I cannot say that any of it was a ritual; however I did know for one fact that there were quite a few snuff dippers within that family. Sought of makes me think about Alex Haley when he said he used to hear his aunts sit around the porch talking; well, I did get a chance sometime back then looking and listening to my mom, to an aunt, and to one of their cousins, sitting on a porch in North Carolina, dipping snuff at night, talking about this thing and that, this person and that person. I always remember it was in the summer, nighttime summer in North Carolina, in the country part, where things from flies to gnats seemed to fly around under a lighted porch. These three ladies just simply like talking as in the case of a lot of ladies, whether Alex's relatives or any one else's relatives. Man, how on earth did they dip that stuff. Joseph