Westward Ho! Field-grown marijuana allowed in state's proposed regulations

[RainDog]

44. The anthropological evidence indicates African and European introduction

One linguist puts the use of cannabis for intoxication back to 5000 bc, and claims the changes in word usage from the late Palaeolithic and early Neolithic indicates when people began to use cannabis as an intoxicant (i.e. they gave the plant different names, based upon usage.) Agriculture began around 10,000 bc and the use of hemp in pottery in Asia is in artifacts from 8000 bc. So, cannabis is one of the longest cultivated plants in human history.

The land bridge between Asia and the Pacific west overlaps with the early Neolithic. The Yupik are one of the oldest indigenous groups and they arrived in Alaska and that area in 3000 bc. They were coming from Siberia, but it's possible they had trade with Asia. I don't know if there are any archeological findings of cannabis use in the Alaskan area among early indigenous people.

China, in 1500 bc, first mentions cannabis in writing, tho obviously this was not its first use, since it had already been developed as a medicine and had already developed two linguistic categories for the cannabis used for different reasons. This time (the Bronze Age into the Iron Age) is also the time of the emergence of written language... and one of the first things the Chinese wrote about was cannabis.

Otherwise, tho the route is not totally without dispute, the thinking is that the plant was carried by humans, not wind/pollen moved, from place to place around the world, because it was one of the earliest cultivated/traded crops because of its industrial, medical and intoxicating value. The region of linguistic and archeological origin is Central Asia and South Asia, with a band of early linguistic usage across central Europe.

The Scythians lived where cannabis is indigenous - Central Asia. The Scythian empire shared borders with the Roman empire, and present day Arabia, India, Russia and central Europe. They were also horseback riding people who could cover distances easily. "Cannabis" stems from a Scythian word, "kannab."

Some linguists, botanists, etc. claim the Hebrew "kanah-bosem" (mentioned in Exodus) was cannabis anointing oil for high priests. This would place cannabis among Jewish culture before 1400 bc. (Others have speculated that the oil Jesus used to heal was cannabis oil - epileptics, who were considered demon possessed, have discovered in modern times that cannabis stops their seizures - as it does for people with MS and CP.)

Europeans were aware of cannabis-smoking and eating in "prehistory." They lost this knowledge, along with other knowledge, during the Dark Ages of religious rule. In Europe, prior to the collapse of the Roman Empire, with northern European invaders, Pliny wrote about medical use. Herodotus, the "father of history," wrote about ceremonial/intoxicating use among the Scythians around 400 bc.

The Renaissance came to Europe via Arabian Spain. That goes back to the 800s, at its height, and, again, Arabian traders brought cannabis as part of their wares, along with knowledge of paper-making from China, etc. (which gets to hemp use.) The Arabs in Spain provided the initial translations of lost classical texts. So, just like the Arabs brought ancient philosophers back into the European world, they brought ancient medicine knowledge, too. The rise of the Renaissance coincides with the mention of cannabis, again, in writing in Europe.

Rabelais also wrote about its recreational use in the 1600s in France, and he noted other records of medical use from the 1400s, also in France. So, during the time when European explorers were sailing to the Americas - they were aware of cannabis usages beyond industrial ones. The area of Europe that financed so many explorations was the area of Europe where medical cannabis was reintroduced hundreds of years before.

The reason some people assume Africans brought cannabis to widespread knowledge here, beyond hemp, is because of its use in religious ceremonies among some African regional groups at the time of the slave trade - tho every group had its own description of the plant's powers - war, peace, and love were some of them. But it was considered very valuable and was often carried in a pouch around the neck. So, even if captured and taken, someone could've very well had non-hemp cannabis in a pouch around the neck.

Dutch traders wrote about the use of cannabis among Africans (in Africa) in the 1600s. And the Dutch (East India Co.) were traders of goods and people in the Americas. They brought indentured African (and European, too) workers to the U.S. in the 1600s. So, more likely than not, the religious use of cannabis among some Africans in America was part of their indigenous beliefs - first among indentured workers, then among slaves, when indentured workers were "too expensive."

When the slave trade began, white Christians slavers didn't want Africans to become Christians - because they didn't want to have to grant slaves full humanity, with all that implied for their economic practices. So, indigenous beliefs were practiced in the U.S. among slaves for a long time...and the slave trade itself went on for years, bringing all different African cultures and beliefs together.

There is a lot of archeological evidence of the use of dagga pipes (cannabis) in various parts of Africa. Seeds and pipes have been recovered from multiple regions and peoples, in western, northern and southern Africa. Those writing about these practices initially assumed the seeds were the value, but later realized the seeds were the artifacts/remains from the buds in which they were held.

There's physical evidence of the use pipes (i.e. smoking cannabis) in Africa by the Iron Age (1200 bc) - back to the Sudan/Ethiopia, where one of the greatest early civilizations was located - on the upper Nile. That area, Nubia, is now underwater because of a dam, so archeological remains are buried under both water and sand. This area was where the Queen of Sheba came from (whom Solomon mentions), and was a natural trade area for Arabia and India because of proximity.

Linguistic evidence indicates cannabis came to Africa from either or both the Scythians/Arabs and from India - from the common word "bhang" and its variants among Arab and African languages. Religious and recreational use in Africa, as in Arabia and India, goes far, far back in time.

The white Christians began campaigns to convert slaves in the mid-1700s, but this practice wasn't widely accepted until the 1800s (and this led to the split between different factions - this is when the Southern Baptists came into existence, because of their suport of slavery.) Prior to that, indigenous religions for Africans were practiced here for more than a hundred years.

We know Jefferson traded for some "Indo" cannabis - which is associated with "bhang" or "recreational" cannabis, not hemp. That would be Southeast Asian cannabis. Washington knew to separate males from females for buds, as he wrote about. But we know who was really working and managing those agricultural crops.

Just for the record - the founders were great experimenters. They became familiar with Iroquois democracy, that existed before the European version, because they weren't xenophobes. Franklin experimented with laughing gas when it was first discovered, with Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandfather) and Priestly, etc... (Priestly was the founder of the Unitarian church, as well as the discoverer of oxygen.) So, to me, it is entirely consistent with the ethos of the Enlightenment to assume Franklin, Jefferson, etc... tho not all, of course... would familiarize themselves with aspects of African culture too, and, because they all read the classics, they would know about the ancient mentions of cannabis by two of the most important classical authors. It's less likely that they would not have known, considering their time and their inquisitiveness.

We also know that written records are very scarce from the pov of those who were brought here as slaves. Slavers didn't want to teach Africans to read or write - so the evidence we have about their early experiences here is limited by the ignorance of those writing about it. But this religious use was mentioned as far back as the 1600s.