Smokin Moose
Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
When we left we had travelled across the Red Sea with Menelik I, Ethiopian son of king Solomon in bringing the Ark Of The Covenant into the African continent implying that cannabis first came to Africa across the Red Sea from the Mideast.
The acceptance of Kaneh Bosem as being cannabis by the Ethiopian orthodox church is of a significance we must keep in mind while reading the second part. According to the old testament Kaneh Bosm incense must be burned while approaching the Ark of The Covenant or God would vaporize you. If the Ethiopian Orthodoxy Church still possesses the Ark of The Covenant than surely their interpretation of the work Kaneh Bosm must be correct.
After all, it is a life or death situation that this incense be correct. In continuance of the previous part and of importance to this part, we must establish that cannabis was an important staple source of incense at this time. Incense was one of the most highly valued and traded commodities of the time and by proving cannabis was one of the staple sources of also a unique form of this product we can thereby imply its demand and significance in trade around these regions. The Hebrew word for hashish has also been cited as the word for incense. There are also references to the assyrians using cannabis as an incense between 600 and 800 BC under the name Qunubu similar to the Iranian Kunubu.
The incense trade started with the domestication of the camel and over time took advantage of maritime advancements in order to bypass taxation and laws requiring the incense to travel trhough certain kingdoms giving kings and royalty access to rare goods, protect secret sources, as well as avoid thieves and other hazards and during the peak incense traders moved over 3,000 tons of incense every year. The arrival of the domesticated camel to Arabia, I believe, was the primary catalyst for intercontinental trade which set off a spark, still visible in Mid-eastern and some Asian cultures to this day. In hopes that this does not sound offensive, anyone even vaguely familiar with Arab culture has probably noticed how ingrained certain trade skills and customs have become. In most of the world, Arab owned markets possess unique goods both domestic and foreign which has facilitated an ability to find a means of support for their families in almost any region of the world.
The Bedouin myth regarding the origin of the camel is that they went into the mountains to raid a jewish settlement and ended up getting lost and eating their horses. They eventually wandered into the Jewish camp and the jews fled leaving a couple camels behind but the bedouins killed all of them. The Bedouin then tracked down the Jews and killed them and rode their Camels down out of the mountains. From that day on the Jews never rode camels again and the Bedouin did. Most evidence seems to point to the Jews as the ones who originally obtained the Camels from Africa where they were first domesticated and according to some phrases in the bible, it may very well have been Abraham who was among the first to have a domesticated Camel outside of the African continent.
We now take a look at how trade was established between Africa India China, Viet Nam and Egypt and for the first part of this section we will be looking at a vague and misunderstood maritime history. For the purpose of this discussion we have three cultures trading in the Indian ocean, the Chinese, Indians, and a vague nonspecific group historians simply refer to as "Arab Traders". The reason historians feel quite safe in assuming it was Arab traders who brought cannabis to southern Africa have to do with the Arabs had really mastered the transfer of goods from east asia which remained from the times of the roman empire to long after the discovery of the new world, and actually thrived on the gold and silver the portuguese and spanish had brought back. The oldest cannabis using cultures of southern and central Africa appear to be along the Zambezi river. Also there were several very old Arabic trade colonies still in existence when the first Europeans explored the river in the 19th century. Most historians attribute the introduction of cannabis into southern Africa during the 13th and 14th centuries but they fail to explain why these cultures seem to have been created well before the introduction of Islam.
We now go back to the Red Sea, at the death of Alexander The Great in 323 BC 3 years after his invasion of north India. Now One could go on for years about the effects that Alexander alone had on the dispersal of cannabis but three primary results came from the last 3 years of Alexander's life and his subsequent death. Alexander's assault on and the resulting weakening of the tribes of northwest India reinforced trade links between, Northwest India, Afghanistan, Persia and the Mediteranean. Alexander was well known for encouraging his soldiers to marry outside of their own culture in an attempt to link the east and the west. After his death, many of his soldiers, originally from Macedonia, moved to Punjab, a region historically well known for cannabis production, where they lived with their wives for the rest of their days. I feel there is no question this had an effect on the trade of cannabis products, but the extent of which is hard to quantify. The third result the death of Alexander had on the spread of Cannabis products is that the Greek empire was divided among his generals. The middle east was divided between the Ptolomies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria.
The Seleucids had one serious advantage over the Ptolomies, they had an overland route that gave them access to Indian war elephants amd ivory. The ptolomies in order to obtain these valuable war comodities employed the help of a group much more knowledgeable in maritime trade in the indian ocean, possibly a group called the Nabataeans. Instead of solely obtaining their elephants from India which were those more traditionally used in war. The Zambezi river an immense resource in the collection of African elephants, one variety of which provided very large tusks on both males and females and was a great source of ivory and war elephants. Africa is the home of the largest species of Elephant alive today. The other species of African elephant is a smaller faster species which is capable of swimming underwater also would appear to be useful in battle and its distinct form has interestingly found its way into Nabataean art.
From the Sinai, the Nabataeans were possibly the first to take advantage of the seasonal monsoon winds facilitating trade from the east coast of Africa to Kerala, Sri Lanka and The Bay Of Bengal. Simulataneously, either because of coincidence or shared technology the Nabataeans od the Sinai, the Indians, Sri Lankans and the Chinese all had an explosion of technology facilitating oceanic travel. The development of a triangular sail when combined with a long centerboard/keel for the first time, allowed sailors to harvest the power of vectors and sail virtually upwind by tacking and the timing of how this technology was spread along with their possession of artwork from all over South and East Asia as well as Africa implies that they were possibly the ones to spread this technology around the indian ocean. One of these early hull types for the early triangular sailed dhows, still in use today is referred to as a "Ganja". Although atm for me to provide any sort of guess as to how this type of hull received this name other than pointing out that the hulls were most likely built in India would be pure speculation but it is an interesting link worthy of more investigation.
The size of the gene pool and variability in phenotypes of landrace plants in Yunnan (southeastern china) or India, individually is absolutely immense but together, have the ability to produce potent cannabis capable of growing almost anywhere on the planet with even the most modest agricultural potential, whether due to a short growing season, arid conditions, or just an inhospitable climate.
B. Introduction To Southern Africa (Finally, lol)
I feel we can confidently say Cannabis goes back quite far in eastern, southern and central Africa. Community based rituals along the Zambezi valley such as those that employ piles of cannabis leaves being thrown upon a fire and are inhaled by the community as a whole as a means to create a communal bond, typically dont develop extremely rapidly, especially with unfamiliar materials. Also, the introduction of cannabis to the region by Arab traders appears to be quite separate from the introduction of Islam to the region. Several coins have turned up in Zimbabwe and the Zambezi valley originating from Persia and ranging in dates from the first to 4th century AD. As I said before, the Arab trade colonies along the Zambezi river were the first to introduce Cannabis to Africa outside of the Red Sea/Middle Eastern region. Linguistically there are three groups of terms for Cannabis in this region. There are words based on the Indian term Bhang such as Bhangi, Mbanghi, Mbanzhi, etc. Then theres the hottentot Dagga based words, and then you have the Riamba, Liambe, Liamba, Diamba family of words. The latter family of terms spreads from the headwaters of the Zambezi river and a little but north and east but mostly north and west all the way to Nigeria and is also used in some modern context in the Ivory Coast. Many botanists insist that cannabis was not introduced into Nigeria until after World War II but Sir Richard Burton mentioned it growing wild in Lagos, Nigeria in one of his journals. I cannot profess to claim the origins of the Riamba based words but interestingly a search of towns, hills, mountains, cities etc of places in the world whose names contain these words solely brings up places in this region of Zambia, Angola, Cameroon, Ivory Coast etc, all places which use this as the traditional term for cannabis. It seems likely that this liguistic group illustrates the route of introduction into central Africa also. I tend to feel that these terms are remnants of the first Arab Ivory traders who came up the Zambezi river from before Arabs adopted the term Bhang from India.
Sandwiching the Riamba language group we have the Bhang based terms occur to the East, and South. These terms represent the groups which adopted the term from traders who brought the word from India and seem to hint at Indian ancestry to the cannabis itself. Indian phenotypes appear to be common in southern Africa. Traits such as monophyllus leaves, heavy tertiary and quaternary branching, and the terpenotypes appear to connect many of the southern african landraces to southern India. Thise term very possibly arrived with later traders before the 11th century AD during the mining of gold fields in East Africa.
The term Dagga seems to have been originally a hottentot term, as a reference to the shared properties of ingestion by smoking with tobacco referring to it as green tobacco (daXab) from the original term for tobacco duXan. This is most likely used by the hottentots because they were introduced tobacco from the Portuguese most likely at a time similar to that of cannabis. The portuguese were known to have taken advantage of the southernmost tip of Africa as a trade route around the continent. The word dagga also appears on the southernmost portion of the continent.
Source: Zamalito
The acceptance of Kaneh Bosem as being cannabis by the Ethiopian orthodox church is of a significance we must keep in mind while reading the second part. According to the old testament Kaneh Bosm incense must be burned while approaching the Ark of The Covenant or God would vaporize you. If the Ethiopian Orthodoxy Church still possesses the Ark of The Covenant than surely their interpretation of the work Kaneh Bosm must be correct.
After all, it is a life or death situation that this incense be correct. In continuance of the previous part and of importance to this part, we must establish that cannabis was an important staple source of incense at this time. Incense was one of the most highly valued and traded commodities of the time and by proving cannabis was one of the staple sources of also a unique form of this product we can thereby imply its demand and significance in trade around these regions. The Hebrew word for hashish has also been cited as the word for incense. There are also references to the assyrians using cannabis as an incense between 600 and 800 BC under the name Qunubu similar to the Iranian Kunubu.
The incense trade started with the domestication of the camel and over time took advantage of maritime advancements in order to bypass taxation and laws requiring the incense to travel trhough certain kingdoms giving kings and royalty access to rare goods, protect secret sources, as well as avoid thieves and other hazards and during the peak incense traders moved over 3,000 tons of incense every year. The arrival of the domesticated camel to Arabia, I believe, was the primary catalyst for intercontinental trade which set off a spark, still visible in Mid-eastern and some Asian cultures to this day. In hopes that this does not sound offensive, anyone even vaguely familiar with Arab culture has probably noticed how ingrained certain trade skills and customs have become. In most of the world, Arab owned markets possess unique goods both domestic and foreign which has facilitated an ability to find a means of support for their families in almost any region of the world.
The Bedouin myth regarding the origin of the camel is that they went into the mountains to raid a jewish settlement and ended up getting lost and eating their horses. They eventually wandered into the Jewish camp and the jews fled leaving a couple camels behind but the bedouins killed all of them. The Bedouin then tracked down the Jews and killed them and rode their Camels down out of the mountains. From that day on the Jews never rode camels again and the Bedouin did. Most evidence seems to point to the Jews as the ones who originally obtained the Camels from Africa where they were first domesticated and according to some phrases in the bible, it may very well have been Abraham who was among the first to have a domesticated Camel outside of the African continent.
We now take a look at how trade was established between Africa India China, Viet Nam and Egypt and for the first part of this section we will be looking at a vague and misunderstood maritime history. For the purpose of this discussion we have three cultures trading in the Indian ocean, the Chinese, Indians, and a vague nonspecific group historians simply refer to as "Arab Traders". The reason historians feel quite safe in assuming it was Arab traders who brought cannabis to southern Africa have to do with the Arabs had really mastered the transfer of goods from east asia which remained from the times of the roman empire to long after the discovery of the new world, and actually thrived on the gold and silver the portuguese and spanish had brought back. The oldest cannabis using cultures of southern and central Africa appear to be along the Zambezi river. Also there were several very old Arabic trade colonies still in existence when the first Europeans explored the river in the 19th century. Most historians attribute the introduction of cannabis into southern Africa during the 13th and 14th centuries but they fail to explain why these cultures seem to have been created well before the introduction of Islam.
We now go back to the Red Sea, at the death of Alexander The Great in 323 BC 3 years after his invasion of north India. Now One could go on for years about the effects that Alexander alone had on the dispersal of cannabis but three primary results came from the last 3 years of Alexander's life and his subsequent death. Alexander's assault on and the resulting weakening of the tribes of northwest India reinforced trade links between, Northwest India, Afghanistan, Persia and the Mediteranean. Alexander was well known for encouraging his soldiers to marry outside of their own culture in an attempt to link the east and the west. After his death, many of his soldiers, originally from Macedonia, moved to Punjab, a region historically well known for cannabis production, where they lived with their wives for the rest of their days. I feel there is no question this had an effect on the trade of cannabis products, but the extent of which is hard to quantify. The third result the death of Alexander had on the spread of Cannabis products is that the Greek empire was divided among his generals. The middle east was divided between the Ptolomies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria.
The Seleucids had one serious advantage over the Ptolomies, they had an overland route that gave them access to Indian war elephants amd ivory. The ptolomies in order to obtain these valuable war comodities employed the help of a group much more knowledgeable in maritime trade in the indian ocean, possibly a group called the Nabataeans. Instead of solely obtaining their elephants from India which were those more traditionally used in war. The Zambezi river an immense resource in the collection of African elephants, one variety of which provided very large tusks on both males and females and was a great source of ivory and war elephants. Africa is the home of the largest species of Elephant alive today. The other species of African elephant is a smaller faster species which is capable of swimming underwater also would appear to be useful in battle and its distinct form has interestingly found its way into Nabataean art.
From the Sinai, the Nabataeans were possibly the first to take advantage of the seasonal monsoon winds facilitating trade from the east coast of Africa to Kerala, Sri Lanka and The Bay Of Bengal. Simulataneously, either because of coincidence or shared technology the Nabataeans od the Sinai, the Indians, Sri Lankans and the Chinese all had an explosion of technology facilitating oceanic travel. The development of a triangular sail when combined with a long centerboard/keel for the first time, allowed sailors to harvest the power of vectors and sail virtually upwind by tacking and the timing of how this technology was spread along with their possession of artwork from all over South and East Asia as well as Africa implies that they were possibly the ones to spread this technology around the indian ocean. One of these early hull types for the early triangular sailed dhows, still in use today is referred to as a "Ganja". Although atm for me to provide any sort of guess as to how this type of hull received this name other than pointing out that the hulls were most likely built in India would be pure speculation but it is an interesting link worthy of more investigation.
The size of the gene pool and variability in phenotypes of landrace plants in Yunnan (southeastern china) or India, individually is absolutely immense but together, have the ability to produce potent cannabis capable of growing almost anywhere on the planet with even the most modest agricultural potential, whether due to a short growing season, arid conditions, or just an inhospitable climate.
B. Introduction To Southern Africa (Finally, lol)
I feel we can confidently say Cannabis goes back quite far in eastern, southern and central Africa. Community based rituals along the Zambezi valley such as those that employ piles of cannabis leaves being thrown upon a fire and are inhaled by the community as a whole as a means to create a communal bond, typically dont develop extremely rapidly, especially with unfamiliar materials. Also, the introduction of cannabis to the region by Arab traders appears to be quite separate from the introduction of Islam to the region. Several coins have turned up in Zimbabwe and the Zambezi valley originating from Persia and ranging in dates from the first to 4th century AD. As I said before, the Arab trade colonies along the Zambezi river were the first to introduce Cannabis to Africa outside of the Red Sea/Middle Eastern region. Linguistically there are three groups of terms for Cannabis in this region. There are words based on the Indian term Bhang such as Bhangi, Mbanghi, Mbanzhi, etc. Then theres the hottentot Dagga based words, and then you have the Riamba, Liambe, Liamba, Diamba family of words. The latter family of terms spreads from the headwaters of the Zambezi river and a little but north and east but mostly north and west all the way to Nigeria and is also used in some modern context in the Ivory Coast. Many botanists insist that cannabis was not introduced into Nigeria until after World War II but Sir Richard Burton mentioned it growing wild in Lagos, Nigeria in one of his journals. I cannot profess to claim the origins of the Riamba based words but interestingly a search of towns, hills, mountains, cities etc of places in the world whose names contain these words solely brings up places in this region of Zambia, Angola, Cameroon, Ivory Coast etc, all places which use this as the traditional term for cannabis. It seems likely that this liguistic group illustrates the route of introduction into central Africa also. I tend to feel that these terms are remnants of the first Arab Ivory traders who came up the Zambezi river from before Arabs adopted the term Bhang from India.
Sandwiching the Riamba language group we have the Bhang based terms occur to the East, and South. These terms represent the groups which adopted the term from traders who brought the word from India and seem to hint at Indian ancestry to the cannabis itself. Indian phenotypes appear to be common in southern Africa. Traits such as monophyllus leaves, heavy tertiary and quaternary branching, and the terpenotypes appear to connect many of the southern african landraces to southern India. Thise term very possibly arrived with later traders before the 11th century AD during the mining of gold fields in East Africa.
The term Dagga seems to have been originally a hottentot term, as a reference to the shared properties of ingestion by smoking with tobacco referring to it as green tobacco (daXab) from the original term for tobacco duXan. This is most likely used by the hottentots because they were introduced tobacco from the Portuguese most likely at a time similar to that of cannabis. The portuguese were known to have taken advantage of the southernmost tip of Africa as a trade route around the continent. The word dagga also appears on the southernmost portion of the continent.
Source: Zamalito
