Professional Marijuana Grower March-April 2018 Issue | Page 60

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A History of Cannabis in Africa
ive hundred years ago, some white men found
themselves in the jungles near the Cape of Good
Hope. They were “discovered” by the aborigines who
took them to their chief. After the greeting ceremony
that required genufl ection and perhaps even prostration,
and after the chief had made his position of authority clear;
these men were entertained. They were offered food, and
bangue – an intoxicating drink made of the leaves and
fl owers from a plant that was being cultivated in and around
the Cape of Good Hope, and which, the foreigners real-
ized, was marijuana. (Source: Marijuana – The First Twelve
Thousand Years.)
This is Important for two reasons:
Cannabis isn’t native to Africa – and yet, these tribes that were
focused on getting almost everything they required from their
immediate environment, didn’t just use marijuana, they also
cultivated it.
The name they used for it was bangue, which sounds almost like
“bhang” which is the common Indian name for Cannabis.
Around 1700 A.D., the Khoikhois who were then known as Hot-
tentots (a term now considered derogatory) and who were the
original inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope; were already
using hemp as a recreational drug. They called it Dagga. They
had been ingesting it for almost a century before the Europeans
arrived, but the Europeans taught them the art of smoking it.
Another interesting fi nd that tells us about Africa’s historical
connection with cannabis are the Ethiopian smoking-pipes. Ar-
chaeologists have found two ceramic smoking-pipe bowls con-
taining traces of cannabis, in Ethiopia – a country situated near
the horn of Africa. These artifacts date to the fourteenth century,
and they are possibly the earliest evidence of cannabis smoking
in Africa.
It’s highly probable that cannabis was brought into Africa
around 1300 AD – by either the Arab Merchants or by the
Chinese traders, or by both. The term “bangue” or “bang” (in
Swahili) indicates an Indian connection, which of course, tilts
the scales in favor of the Arab Merchants bringing it to the
African continent.
Around 1300, the Sufi saints (the nomadic breakaway group
of Islam that had already been using cannabis for almost 200
years,) had also begun journeying into the Mediterranean, the
Egypt, and the African East Coast. They, along with the Arab
merchants may have brought cannabis to Africa.
Ancient Egypt boasts of a very long association with cannabis.
About four thousand years ago the Egyptians were already
enjoying the benefi ts of Marijuana. Upper Egypt that spread
through today’s Sudan, could possibly be held responsible for
the two smoking-pipe bowls that were discovered in Ethiopia,
which shares its northern border with Sudan. It’s possible that
the spread of Marijuana began in Africa through Ethiopia, and
that it began a lot earlier – perhaps during the time of the New
Kingdom?
While all of this is possible no one can be sure. What we
defi nitely know is that when Europeans turned their attention to
Africa, the natives of the South-Eastern Africa were not only cul-
tivating and consuming cannabis but they were also referring to
it as bangue.
In Africa, cannabis use wasn’t restricted to recreational use it
was also used for medicinal and spiritual purposes. Medicinally,
it was used to help treat diseases like Malaria and also as an
anesthetic. PMG
Background information for this article was provided
by MJLinks.com.
All these facts raise an interesting question: How did Cannabis,
which wasn’t a native African plant, arrive in Africa? There are
many possible answers to this question:
60 • Professional Marijuana Grower
March/April 2018