Man and Cannabis in Africa: A Study of Diffusion - Journal of African Economic History (1976)

African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Man and Cannabis in Africa: A Study of Diffusion
Author(s): Brian M. du Toit
Source: African Economic History, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 17-35
Published by: African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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17
Man and
Cannable
in Africa: A
Studg
of
Diffuesion
Brian
M. du Toit
University of Florida
The
past
decade has seen an
awakening
of research interests
regard-
ing psychoactive
and
hallucinogenic drugs.
While the New World is
par-
ticularly
rich in these natural
products,
no
drug
has as wide a distri-
bution nor as universal an
appeal
as cannabis. This
hallucinogen
is
known
by
different local referrents but the most
widely
distributed is
marijuana
in the United States and Latin
America,
and
hemp
or Indian
hemp
in
many
of the other
Anglophone
areas of the world. While it has
near universal
distribution,
it is nonetheless to the Old World we must
look for its
origin
and
original acceptance.
Cannabis was
originally
cultivated as a fiber
plant
and
only
its
leaves were used in the
pharmacopoeia
of different
peoples.
Linnaeus
classified it as a
simple species
Cannabis
sativa,
but "recent research
indicates that there
may
well be several
species."'1
At this
stage
we
are not concerned with this botanical
question
but intend to focus on
the social use and diffusion of the
plant through
Africa.
In this
paper
we will examine in turn the
historical, sociological,
and
linguistic
evidence
relating
to the cannabis
plant
in Africa.
Then,
after a brief review of current
hypotheses regarding
the diffusion of
cannabis,
we will
propose
a more
encompassing hypothesis
to account for
its
spread
in sub-Saharan Africa.
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
The
early trading
contacts between India and the Arabian Penin-
sula,
as well as trade and settlement
by
Indian and Arabian merchants
started around the
Horn,
but soon extended southward
along
the east
African coast.
Early
trade links between Arabia and the east African
coast are well documented and were
flourishing by
the first centuries
A.D. Doubtless such
trading
involved valued
products
from
India,
Turkey,
and Persia in
exchange
for
minerals, precious stones,
and
ivory.
According
to classical sources an Arabian trade center existed at
Rhapta
and in time settlers and traders
spread southward, along
the coast.
Neville Chittick
reports
that
by
the eleventh or twelfth
century
Muslim settlements could be found on Zanzibar and
Pemba,
and also at
Kilwa.2
The same author
suggested
that
"By
the
early
tenth
century
A.D.
(al-Mas'udi),
there were Muslims in
Qanbalu (Pemba?)
and there were
already
Bantu settled in this zone.
By
the mid-twelfth
century (al-
Idrisi),
most the inhabitants of Zanzibar were
Muslim;
there were num-
bers of towns on the
mainland,
most of which
appear
to have been
pagan,"3
and there was close contact between these settlers and Bantu
speakers.
This is also the
period during
which cannabis
spread
westward
from
India and Persia to
Egypt.4
African Economic
History, Spring,
1976.
18
Ahmad
Khalifa, referring
to Arabic
historians,
stated that cannabis
was introduced into
Egypt during
the
reign
of the
Ayyubid dynasty,
around
the mid-twelfth
century;
"as a result of the
emigration
of
mystic
devo-
tees from
Syria.5
We
might
then
suggest
that the Arab communities on
the African east coast were associated with
cannabis,
either in the form
of the domesticated
variety
used for its
fiber,
or the wild
variety
which
was used as medication and as a
mind-altering
substance.
Much of the trade with the interior
regions
of Africa was
by
ascent
through
river
valleys
but these
frequently
were rendered
impassible
during
the
rainy season,
thus
necessitating
extended
periods
of
stay
in
the interior. A.McMartin6 in fact
suggests
that at various inland centers
the Arabs had
semi-permanent
settlements where
they
would
spend
one or
two
years away
from the coast. When the
Portuguese
made their
way up
the Zambezi in 1531 to establish a
trading post,
a small Arab
community
existed at
Sena,
almost a hundred miles from the coast.7 Based on ethno-
historical
sources,
D. P. Abraham has estimated that at the start of the
sixteenth
century
at least ten thousand Arabs were in Rhodesia
tapping
the
wealth of the Zimbabwe settlers in Rhodesia.8 In time
they
had a
great
influence over the
Karanga territory--an
influence
they
later
exchanged
with the
Portuguese
who traded from their new base in
Mozambique.
Two
centuries later David
Livingstone
commented on the
presence
of Arab
traders and Arab influences in wide areas of central Africa.
We need not
overemphasize
the
presence
of the Arab traders in the
interior. At the time when the first Arab settlements were
being
estab-
lished off the east African
coast,
and the
gold
trade with Sofala was
being regularized,9
there were
already Bantu-speaking peoples
in contact
with them. These
Bantu-speakers
were
gradually spreading
southward as
they expanded
their
territory
or
grazed
their cattle. As far back as
the second and third centuries A.D.
imports
were
reaching
central Africa
via
indigenous
trade
routes,10
or
spreading
further westward
along
an
extensive series of trade routes into the
Congo
basin11
or,
more
likely,
conveyed by Swahili-speaking
traders into the Great Lakes
region.
In a
discussion of excavations of sites on Lake Kisale in northern
Katanga,
Jacques Neguin postulates
a date of the seventh to the ninth
century
A.D.
for them and states that "the
perforated
cowrie shell found in Burial 54
probably
comes from the East Coast."12 This is one of
many suggestions
by
research workers
regarding
trade contacts at an
early date,
but more
important,
trade contacts from east to west. Further south there is
documentation of similar
indigenous trade,
for around 1835 "the Matabele
had considerable traffic with the
Amasili/Masarwa
off the
edge
of the
Kalahari, exchanging iron, daggo (sic), spears, hoes,
and knives for
ostrich
eggshell beads, ivory, feathers,
horns and skins."13
The same kind of trade into the Kalahari
region
from the
peoples
in South West Africa also
existed,
as did various trade lihks
among
the
local
populations
who cultivated and used cannabis. H. Vedder
(1928)13a
emphasized
the value of cannabis as
currency
in transactions
where,
for
example,
the
Bergdama
who cultivated the
herb,
traded it to the Ovambo
for
goats
and cows. In fact it was "the
Bergdama's money
with which
they
could
buy everything they
needed." In what later became South
Africa we have earlier and better documented evidence of the
presence
14
of
cannabis, though
it was
frequently
confused with Leonotis leonurus.
The inclusion of cannabis in the list of trade items between Khoikhoi
19
and
Bantu-speakers
on the east coast has been discussed elsewherel5
though
it would seem that some
groups among
the
Khoikhoi, particularly
the
Hankumqua, may
have cultivated this herb. In addition to the Khoi-
khoi the San hunters both usedl6 and traded17 cannabis. In
fact,
when
Whites settled at the southern
tip
of the African continent cannabis
was in common use. We will return to this
question
when
dealing
with
the
linguistic argument
below.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA
That Iron
Age
Africans were
cultivating
in the Zambezi
valley
and
raising
their cattle in that
region by
the second or third
century
A.D.
is now a well established fact. In
fact, authoritatively
dated archaeo-
logical
sites from Zambia and Rhodesia show the
presence
of settled
communities of Iron
Age peoples
between A.D. 185 and A.D. 300.18 These
were
village
dwellers who were
experimenting
with iron
smelting
and
pottery making.
We also know that in Zambia trade items from the coast
are
quite
common in
archaeological
sites
dating
from the sixth or seventh
centuries.19 These sites are also rich in
pottery
and carved stone
items, indicating
that the bowls of
pipes
essential in the
smoking
of
cannibis could have been
readily prepared
from either of these materials.
Further south
smoking pipes
were found in the
Brandberg,
South West
Africa,
where
they
were associated with
large, open-station
settlement
sites attributed to the
Bergdama.
Two of these sites have radiocarbon
dates of 1590 and 1730 A.D. respectively.20 Apparently then people here-
abouts were
smoking by
the sixteenth
century.
Based on ethnohistorical
information we would
suggest
that
they
were in fact
smoking
cannabis.
If we look to the north of the
general region just discussed,
it
is clear that cannabis was
being
used in the northern
Kenya-southern
Ethiopia region shortly
after the thirteenth
century
date
suggested
for
the introduction of cannabis into Africa. That it was
being
smoked is
borne out
by
excavations in
Ethiopia
where two ceramic
smoking-pipe
bowls
were excavated with a date determined to be
1320+80
A.D. More
important
however is the fact that both
yielded positive
tests for cannabis-
derived
compounds.21
ETHNOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
A
survey
of seventeenth
century
and
eighteenth century
travel docu-
ments, ethnographies,
and
anthropological
studies
presents
a
picture
of
established cannabis users
throughout
sub-Saharan Africa.22 This
applies
not
only
to the Khoikhoi herders in the south and their San
neighbors
but also to the
Bantu-speakers
in contact with them. It
applies equally
to most of the
Negroid peoples
in
south, east,
and central Africa. This
common cultural
pattern
of use and the terms used to refer to the herb
(see below) suggests
a
longstanding acceptance
of cannabis in most of
sub-Saharan Africa.
There is
by
contrast a
significant
absence of cannabis
among
the
traditional societies in West Africa. We do know that
early
north-
south trade routes existed across the Sahara and that a
degree
of trade
20
existed centuries before
Europeans
made their contacts from the sea.
This
point
must be
emphasized
because cannabis has
always spread
due to
the contact of
peoples
and the trade route would thus be a normal mode
of diffusion. We also know that cannabis was
present
in
Egypt
at about
the same time that it was introduced to the African east coast.
However,
although
the herb was used
extensively
in
Egypt
where it was
grown
in
gardens
and
traded--ultimately
as far west as
Spain--during
the fourteenth
century,
it failed to
spread along
the trade routes across the Sahara.
This hiatus
might
be
explained
in terms of a desert climate which was
not conducive to its
growth
or an
unwillingness
on the
part
of desert
people
and West African
Negroes
to
accept
it. It is also
possible
that
it was not
acceptable
while in the form of dried leaves. We
know,
for
example,
that
throughout
this
period cannabis,
under the name "hashish"
was eaten in
Egypt
and
only
much later used in
pipes.
Thus it
might
not
have been
accepted
because it was not
integrated
with an established
cultural
pattern.
Whatever the reason we have found no evidence of can-
nabis in West Africa before the Second World War.
It is
possible,
of
course,
that the West African
peoples
were
simp-
ly
not interested in the
herb,
that the
population
movements were east
and
south,
thus
discouraging
much diffusion or elaborate trade routes
westward,
or that a combination of
geographical
barriers and
ecological
zones
discouraged
its
spread.
It is more than
likely
that a combination
of these various factors was-involved.
West Africa's isolation in this
regard
was breached when its
people
went eastward to war. As T. Asuni
points
out: "Cannabis sativa is not
indigenous
to
Nigeria,
and evidence indicated that it was introduced to
the
country
and most
likely
to other
parts
of West
Africa, during
and
after the second World War
by
soldiers
returning
from the Middle East
and the Far
East,
and North
Africa,
and also
by
sailors."23 There is
furthermore no traditional name for it
though
a number of local refer-
rents have since
emerged. Although by
1965
Nigeria
was a
supplier
for
local
consumption,
as well as for "illicit traffic between
neighboring
countries and in international illicit
traffic,"24
researchers have found
the herb to be used
primarily by "marginal" Africans; by young migrant
workers; by "organized political thugs;"
or
by "recently
evolved secret
societies with criminal
aims,
such as Odozi Obodo and the
Leopard-men
society
of
Nigeria"25 apparently
used as a
compensatory drug
under stress.
In contrast to some of the cases in East Africa where cannabis is well-
accepted
and used
by
males and females
alike,
in
Nigeria
we find that
it is "almost
entirely
confined to the male sex."26
Further
west,
in
Ghana,
the situation is almost identical to that
in
Nigeria.
The first
illegal
cultivation of cannabis in Ghana was
reported by police
in 1960 where the herb is called
"Wee,"
which is seen
by
one author as "a
corruption
of 'weed'
by
seamen."27 It is
smoked,
but
only
in the form of a rolled
cigarette.
We can thus view it as a
truly
recent introduction without the normal
accompanying paraphernalia
of the
waterpipe.
21
THE LINGUISTIC PICTURE
There are two
important
terms in the
history
of the herb: Sanskrit
bhanga
which resulted in the Hindi use of
bhang;
and Arabic
kinnab,
a
word which
probably
accounted for the
adoption by
Linnaeus the botanist
of the sub-order cannabis.
In its natural form in
India, growing
either wild or in a cultivated
state,
cannabis was referred to as
bhang.
This term
applied
to the
dry
28
leaves of the
hemp plant
which were used either for a tea or for
smoking.
It is also the word which
spread
with the herb itself.
Early
Muslim
writings,
from the thirteenth
century onwards,
refer
to
banj
or hashish29 but the former
may
in some cases have referred to
henbane. Those
early
writers who criticized the use of the herb as a
drug, however,
did use
banj
for cannabis. Medieval Muslim
society
also
recognized
its use and
distinguished
it from all other medicinal herbs.
The use of
hashish,
which could refer to
grass
as
fodder, weeds,
medici-
nal herbs and so forth was
simply
a nickname and could be an abbreviation
of al-hashish al-muskir "the
intoxicating
hashish."
The early
Arab traders introduced the term
bang
to Africa and in
linguistic
variant
forms,
it is found all over east and south Africa.
Thus the Dictionnaire Swahili
-
Fransais
prepared by
the Institut d'Eth-
nologie (Paris, 1939)
refers to
Bangi,
which indicates Indian
hemp
or
hemp-like
dried
top
sections
prepared
as intoxicants. The
origins
of the term are listed as: Hindi:
bang,
Arabic:
banj,
and Persian bandz
(banj).
In the
region
of the East African Great
Lakes, just
south of Lake
Victoria, cannabis is referred to as bhangi30--no
doubt the result of
early
Swahili contacts. When the
explorer Speke during
the
1850's
made
his
way
from the coast to the Great Lakes he found Arab communities and
cannabis in use. The use of
banghi
was common as it still is
among
the
Swahili
along
the coast.
Variations of
bangi are, however,
found further south. Thus the
Thonga31
in the Zambezi
valley
refer to cannabis as
mbange,
while the
Rhodesian Shona use
mbanji.
Just south of the
Limpopo
divide, south-
west of the
Thonga,
live the Venda who refer to it as
mbanzhe,
and the
Sotho
speakers
called it lebake or
patse.
A
slight phonemic
variation
occurs
among
the Swazi-Zulu
speakers
who use the term
ntsangu
and the
Lamba in the
present
Zambia have
long
used
uluwangula.32
Referring
to
a much more recent situation in
Rwanda,
Helen Codere-
reports
on canna-
bis use
among
the
indigenous population. Cannabis,
"called
injaga
in
Kingarawanda,"
is associated with the Twa of both sexes and
only very
rarelK
with Hutu and Tutsi. The
latter, however,
use the herb medicin-
ally.34
We find then a
geographical complex along
the east coast and extend-
ing
some hundreds of miles
inland,
or
along
the
Zambezi,
where
indigenous
Bantu
speakers adopted
not
only
the herb but also the term
bang.
The
presence
of Arab traders
among
them
probably
had some influence in this
regard
but the
early
dates for
smoking pipes suggest
that cannabis
may
have
preceded
its Arab bearers in the
process
of diffusion.
Bang
and its Bantu derivatives are not found in all of southern
Africa. In the southernmost
part
of the continent we encounter an
historical accident which resulted in a common nomenclature which
22
E l-ang-
l
dagga
-lomajor
diffusion route
-~- minor diffusion route
23
clouds the
geographical
and historical
importance
of this
single
term.
This is due in
part
to an erroneous
application
of the term and to
gen-
eralization which followed.
The earliest use of the term
"dagga"
of which we are aware occurs
in the
diary
of Jan van
Riebeeck,
the first
governor
of the new Dutch
settlement at the
Cape
of Good
Hope.
The date was
1658,
and it was
spelled
as
"daccha."
It is almost certain that here and in numerous
subsequent
references we are not
dealing
with Cannabis sativa but with
Leonotis leonurus a well-known
flowering
shrub used
by
the Khoikhoi.
Van Reibeeck refers to this daccha as "een
droogh cruyt
dat de Hottentoos
eeten ende droncken van worden"
(a dry powder
which the Hottentots eat
and which makes them
drunk).
In
discussing
the medicinal and
poisonous
plants
of southern
Africa,
J. M. Watt and M. G.
Breyer-Brandwijk point
out that Leonotis leonurus R.
Br.,
also referred to as Rooi
dagga,
Wilde
dagga,
or
Klipdagga
was in
early
times smoked
by
the Khoikhoi instead of
tobacco.
They
also
quote early
authors to the effect that the White
Colonists
employed
the
plant
and that "the
preparation produces
narcotic
effects if used
incautiously,"35
and that "Laidler records that in olden
times the Namas formed the
powdered
leaf into cakes which were chewed
evidently
for the
intoxicating
effects."36
Many
of the same
properties
are ascribed to another member of the
family,
Leonotis leonotis R.
Br.,
also referred to as
Knoppies
dagga
or
Klipdagga.
While it is
impossible
to confuse the adult
plant
of Cannabis sativa
and adult
specimens
of the Leonotis
group
which bear clusters of
bright
red
flowers,
it is
likely
that the common use and related effects of
these two
plants
lead to the similar term
being applied
to both
plants.
This
classificatory
error also underlies
suggestions
that Cannabis
pro-
ducts were eaten or drunk in the
Cape.
As well as
being eaten,
the
Leonotis leaves were also
smoked, usually
after
being
mixed with
tobacco,
so that a double confusion arose in
contemporary writings.
One of the most
complete linguistic analyses
of the term
"dagga"
37
has been made
by
G. S. Nienaber in his
study
entitled "Hottentots"
(1963).
In
suggesting two possible origins
for this term he refers to the works
of a number of
previous
researchers:
(a) Following
Hahn and Lichten-
stein,
it is
possible
that Dutch term tabak
(tobacco),
which
frequently
appears
as
twak,
was
corrupted
to
twaga,
later
toaga
and
finally dagga.
This however seems a farfetched
origin. (b)
A much more
plausible
postulate
is that the Khoikhoi term daXa-b or
baXa-b,
which
among
other
things
refers to
tobacco,
is the root noun from which
dagga
could be
derived. When
referring specifically
to
dagga
we find the
qualifier
!am
-
(green) being
added to the root mentioned
above,
and the result
is !amaXa-b
namely "green
tobacco" or
dagga.
Lichtenstein, Meinhof,
and Nienaber himself doubt that
dagga
is an
original
Khoikhoi word. Meinhof
goes
so far as to
suggest
that
dagga
is
really
a derivative of the Arabic word duXan
(actually
duXXan or
tobacco,"38
which came in
by way
of the
early
Khoikhoi
migrants.19
We
should
immediately point
out that no other
language group
in South Africa
ever used such a term or
anything resembling
it.
Early European
observers in South Africa
normally
had
difficulty
in
recording phonetically
the terms
they
heard
among indigenous peoples.
In time a
variety
of
spellings
for this common Khoikhoi word
began
to
appear
in the literature. Thus we find daccha
(1658),
dacha
(1660),
24
dackae
(1663), dagha (1686), daggha (1695), dagga (1708), tagga (1725),
dacka
(1775),
and
daga
(1779),
as writers recorded the
practices
asso-
ciated with the
plant.40
We must
repeat
that not all these writers in
fact were
referring
to Cannabis sativa.
Furthermore,
not all of them
were
speaking
of
smoking
the herb to which
they
referred.
Since
early
white settlers were introduced to cannabis in southern
Africa
by way
of the Khoikhoi
herders,
it was
only
natural that the
term
dagga
became the common referrent.
Today
it is the standard term
in formal
English
and Afrikaans
references, social,
medical and
legal.
We thus far have established two
terminological complexes
in
Africa,
namely,
terms derived from the Hindi term
bang,
and the
widely
used but
narrowly
distributed term of
dagga.
There
is, however,
a third terminolo-
gical complex
which extends over a
relatively
wide
region covering
Angola
and Zaire. Here we find the terms
diamba, riamba, liamba,
or
chamba. When it was discovered that cannabis
in Brazil was known
by
these terms it was
thought
that these words had
perforce
to be of Portu-
guese origin.
It was furthermore
argued
that either the herb had
reached the African south-west coast
by
the time slaves were taken to
the new world or that the
Portuguese
were instrumental in the diffusion
of the term--and
possibly
the
plant.
One of the most
interesting
areas from which our
analysis may begin
is the
Congo drainage
area and its border districts. From
ethnographic
sources we know that cannabis was used in
present day Zaire,
where for
example hemp-smoking
was said to be "the curse of the Batetela in Kasai
province.'41
Harry
Johnston summarized the situation
by stating
that
"hemp
as a narcotic is not much used in the
Congo
basin
except
in the
southern, south-western,
and south-central
parts,
and the western
Mubangi.
This
practice
has
nearly
died out in the
Kingdom
of
Kongo,
though
it was
prevalent
once. Of late
years hemp-smoking
has
developed
in a rather sensational fashion
among
the excitable
Bashilange..."42
The latter is a
sub-group
of the
larger
Luba
people
and
occupy
the
area around the confluence of the Lulua and the Kasai. It would
appear
that Swahili traders from Zanzibar43 introduced Cannabis into the
region
after the 1850's and the
original "bhang"
was here referred to as "riamba."
During
the civil strife in the
early
1870's a secret
society calling
itself Bena-Riamba was formed.
Early
writers translated this as "Sons"
of
hemp,
but Johnston
pointed
out that we should differentiate bena
(meaning "brothers")
from bana
(meaning "children").
He
suggested
the
use of an initial D- rather than R-44 to read Bena-Diamba. Because
the use of riamba is
ubiquitious
we will retain it in this discussion.
In time there was concern about the
increasing
use of the herb in the
Congo region
and secret societies were formed to counter its use. A
quarter
of a
century
after Johnston's remarks H. Wissman
pointed
out
45
that
"among
the
younger generation
it is
already beginning
to decrease."
It is
interesting
that
among
the
Badjok,
a southern Bantu
people,
who
reside in the same
region reported
on
by
Johnston and Wissman a research-
er met informants who "denied ever
smoking hemp,
but a
great quantity
of
it
grew
near
Mayila's hut--probably
as an ornament."46
47
Cannabis was also smoked in the northern
part
of Zaire and had
spread
into the former French
Congo.
A. L. Cureau stated that
people
smoke tocacco
moderately,
but "the same cannot be said for Indian
hemp,
the habit of
indulging
in which is
making frightful progress"'(sic )48
49
even
using
what was then
recognized
as a
"peculiar pipe
for
smoking
it."
25
Northeast of the area
just
discussed
namely
in the Great Lakes
region,
around
Ujiji,
Richard Burton discovered that almost
every one,
"even when on board the
canoe,
smokes
bhang",50
but it was not as common
in the Lower
Congo. Writing slightly
later than
Burton,
Herbert Ward51
tells us that "wild
hemp smoking (Liamba)
is
practiced by
some of the
natives...The
practice
however is not
extensive,
and it would
appear
to
be a habit of
comparatively
recent
origin."
The
picture
which
emerges
is one in which cannabis was used
widely
but not
necessarily by
all
ethnic-linguistic groups.
We
do, however,
find a common term
through-
out the
Congo drainage region. According
to Jose Pedro Machado's
Dicionario
Etimologico
da
Lingua Portuguesa52
the words diamba and
liamba are derivatives of the Kimbundu word riamba which refers to the
cannabis
plant.
Also in
TchiLuba
the herb is referred to as diamba
and,
we are
told,
but need to
confirm,
that it is known in
KiKongo
as
mfanga.
We find the same noun-stem
being
used in the southern and eastern
part
of
Angola among
the
Vangangella53
and the Ovimbundu. The latter in fact
refer to cannabis as
epangue
and it is cultivated and smoked
exclusively
by
men.54
We are thus left with the
major terminological
divisions of an
-ang-
complex
derived from the term which was
originally
introduced and an -amb-
complex
said to be of Mbundu
origin.
It is
significant though
that
neither J. Gossweiler and F. A.
Mendonca
in their
highly regarded
Carta
Fitogeografica
de
Angola (1939)55
nor Do
Espirito
Santo in Nomes Vernac-
ulos de
Algumas plantas
da Guine'
Portuguesa (1963)56
refer to cannabis
in these
territories,
either
by
botanical classification or
by
the more
general
term. We
might suggest oversight
on their
part
or failure to
recognize
the
presence
of the
plant. (This
would not be an out-of-the-
way explanation,
for in a volume entitled Harvest of Time
-
Angola
of the
Past the
author,
Jose Maria d'Eca de
Queiros,
uses a
photograph
of him-
self57
smoking
a cannabis water
pipe apparently
without
being
aware of
the content since the
caption
reads: "After
choking
several
times,
the
author at last learns to smoke the water
pipe
of the
Quicos."
The
Ango-
lan onlookers were
obviously enjoying
the
experiment.)
What we would
suggest
is that cannabis
might
be of
fairly
recent
origin
so that it
is still seen as a
foreign
herb and not one of the "native"
plants
of
Angola
or Guinea.
CURRENT DIFFUSION HYPOTHESES
The literature contains a number of
suggestions
on the
spread
of
cannabis into southern Africa:
(1)
J. M.
Watt,
a
pharmacist,
has
suggested
that: "the
plant may
have
been introduced
by
the
early
travellers
circumventing
the
Cape
from the
east."58 Almost all our historical documentation and linguistic
evidence
suggests
a date
long
before the fifteenth or sixteenth
century
return of
European navigators.
(2)
Theodore
James, basing
his
argument
on a
single
case of termino-
logical agreement (namely
Hindi and
Shangaan /Thongaj
-
already
men-
tioned)
states that: "the
plant
was first carried to the coast of
59
Mozambique...by
the
Portuguese
militant traders
returning
from
India."
This sets the date even
later,
and
certainly
does not
recognize
documents
regarding early
use.
26
(3)
J. E.
Morley
and A. D.
Bensusan, point
out that the
plant
is not
indigenous
to Southern Africa. "It
appears
most
likely
that it was
brought by
Arab traders to the
Mozambique
coast from India. From there
it was carried southwards
by
the
migrating
Hottentots and Bantu."60 In
general,
this
position
is
supported by
A. J. H. Goodwin.61 While rec-
ognizing
an earlier date of introduction of
cannabis,
this
hypothesis
is
rather
vague
as to "Hottentots and Bantu."
(4)
James Walton refers to his own
survey
of
archaeological reports
which refers to
pipes
found in
early
Bantu
settlements,
and also to Dos
Santos'
description
of cannabis cultivation
by
the eastern Shona in the
sixteenth
century.
He then
suggests
that cannabis "was introduced into
southern Africa
by
the
very
first waves of Bantu invaders from the
North."62 The use of the herb would then have
spread
from Bantu to
Khoikhoi and San. Walton's
suggestion certainly
comes closest to the
accumulated evidence
being presented
in this
paper.
(5)
There is one additional route we must
keep
in
mind, although
this
has not been
incorporated
in
any
of the diffusion
hypotheses:
a
spread
from south Arabia
through Ethiopia.
It is well established that the
Amhara
people very early
on came from
Arabia,
but a
variety
of
products
preceded
and followed this Semitic invasion. Thus Simoons
suggests
that contacts between ancient Cushitic
peoples
and settlements north of
the Red Sea were continued in later times when Amhara settlers continued
these contacts.63 In the
process, plough agriculture,
a zebu strain of
cattle,
and various
agricultural products spread
to
Ethiopia.
The
question
which arises is whether cannabis could have been one of these
products. Recently
N. J. van der Merwe
reported
on two ceramic
pipe
bowls excavated at Lalibela cave near Lake Tana. Both were
parts
of
water-pipes
and had been
impregnated
with definite cannabis-derived
compounds.
The author concluded that "some
variety
of Cannabis sativa
was smoked around Lake Tana in the 13th-14th
century,
in much the same
way
as it is
today."64
The
importance
of the Lake Tana find and the associated radiocarbon
dates are of
great significance. They imply
either that cannabis entered
Ethiopia
from southern
Arabia,
or that it
spread
from the east African
coast in a
northerly
direction from
Bantu-speaking
to Cushitic
peoples.
One
problem
which arises is that Lake Tana is in the north central
part
of
Ethiopia.
Could we
postulate
a trade route from the
present-day
Kenya
into northern
Ethiopia? Unfortunately
we have not
yet
come across
a
thorough study
of
early
trade routes in northeast Africa and are thus
not able to
suggest
diffusion from the
Kenya
coastal
region
to Lake
Tana. Such diffusion
may
in fact have occurred
prior
to the east Africa
settlement of the Arabs.
However,
if we are
dealing
with a
spread
of cannabis from the north
into
Ethiopia,
and Franz Rosenthal
suggests
that "the use of hashish
spread through India,
China and
Ethiopia...,"65
there remains one cri-
tical issue
involving
the
way
it was used.
Referring
to the use of
hashish in medieval Muslim
society
Rosenthal also notes
emphatically
66
that "in our
sources,
hashish is never described as
having
been smoked."
Since the estimated date for the Lake Tana excavation is no more than
a
century
later than most of the other references used
by
Rosenthal we
are
dealing
either with a
very rapid change
in method of
use,
or with
an
independent
diffusion not
typical
of the other methods used around
the
region.
27
The available evidence then seems to allow for a
possible
diffusion
of cannabis from
Syria
to
Ethiopia.
Diverse sources of evidence
suggest
Khoikhoi contact,
for instance in the
presence
of
pottery, cattle,
and
words. Merrick
Posnansky points
out that "evidence of a trickle of
peoples
from the Horn in the last millennium of the
pre-Christian
era
and in the first of the
post-Christian
era is available from the
Eryth-
riote (or caucasoid)
skeletal remains from the
Horn, Kenya,
Tanzania
and Malawi."67 The first contacts with Khoikhoi found them to
possess
"a form of zebu cow which
probably accompanied
them sometime in the
first half of the
present
millenium if
pottery parallels
between East
Africa and South Africa are
any
indication of a fold movement." We
have
already
mentioned the Khoikhoi word for tobacco. If the
argument
outlined here is considered
seriously
it would
imply
that Khoikhoi had
close contact with
Ethiopia
and then
spread
south
along
the east coast
prior
to the Bantu
expansion.
As the Bantu
occupied
the coastal
region
and
migrated southward, they
forced the Khoikhoi into a similar
migra-
tion which
finally brought
them to the
Cape.
An alternative
explanation,
of
course,
is that cannabis and the
water
pipe
diffused from East Africa. This would
certainly
tie in with
the rest of the data
presented
here. It also rests
very heavily
on a
dispersal
from the south into
Ethiopia along
trade routes described for
a later
period by
Richard Pankhurst.68
Just as
likely
an
hypothesis
is one which
postulates
the
spread
of
cannabis from earlier Arab settlements or Indian trade centers around
the Horn of Africa. Diffusion would then have been effected
along
the
salt-trade routes discussed
by
Abir.69 This would even allow for the
spread
of cannabis
directly
from
India,
since it is
recognized
that in
the tenth
century
"Indian merchants were
visiting
Sokotra in vessels
70
called
baraja,
and
/that/ they
were often in conflict with the Muslims."
If we were to
accept
the Horn of Africa as a diffusion center it
would
imply
either that these Indian traders used the water
pipe
and
introduced it
along
with
cannabis,
or that
they
learned about the water
pipe
from Arab traders
during
these
excursions, or, finally,
that the
water
pipe
was
independently
invented near Lake
Tana,
a somewhat
unlikely
conclusion in the
light
of the
subsequent
diffusion of the water
pipe.
Though
he was not concerned in detail with the diffusion of canna-
bis,
A. H.
Dunhill, writing
for the
Encyclopaedia
Britannica, apparently
has his
chronology
and his
migration
routes backwards. He states:71
"The Bushmen and Hottentots of southern Africa used the dakka
pipe;
which cooled and
mitigated
the effects of
hemp
smoke
by drawing
it
through
a horn of water.72 While Africa continued to
produce
more
orthodox
pipes
of almost
every possible
material and size the water
pipe spread
to India... and the Far
East, and...was
popular...in
Persia
in the 17th
Century."
Most scholars
eg.
Laufer73
recognized
the water-
pipe
as
originating
in Persia and
spreading
south and east from there.
We should once
again point
to the
significance
of van der Merwe's
statement
(vide supra)
that the two 13th
century
ceramic
pipe
bowls
excavated in
Ethiopia
"formed
part
of
waterpipes."74
We are aware of course that the water
pipe
did not
require
the
elaborate
parphernalia
now associated with it. In Africa a wealth of
forms
appeared,
as
gourds, antelope horns,
and other containers were
adopted.
In modern urban
settings everything
from milk bottles and soft
28
drink cans to coconut shells are used as water containers. In this
respect
it is of interest that the
waterpipe
which was
integrated
into
Indian
hemp smoking
came to be called the
Nargila,
derived from
Nargil,
the word for a
coconut,
and based on Sanskrit narikera
meaning
coconut.
CONCLUSION
In the
light
of all the evidence available to
date,
none of which
is either conclusive or
quite satisfactory,
we should like to offer the
following hypothesis regarding
the diffusion routes of cannabis in
major
outline
only
in sub-Saharan Africa. We
have,
for reasons cited
above,
presumed
that the
Khoikhoi,
who
preceded
the later
Negroid migrants
southward across the African
plateau
and
along
the east
coast,
were not
the
major
bearers of cannabis.
During
the first
centuries
A.D. Arab traders who had settled around
the Horn and southwards from
Mogadishu
had introduced cannabis to the
indigenous
African
population.
It would
appear
that the herb was intro-
duced as a
product
to smoke rather than in the form of hashish to be
eaten as it was in
Egypt.
From these northern locations
along
the coas-
tal settlements of what is
today
Somalia and
Kenya,
cannabis was carried
and traded into the interior where its
presence
and use in northwestern
Ethiopia
have been documented.
At about the same time Bantu
speakers
were
living
not
only
on the
east African
plateau
but also
occupied
"in force the humid coastal belt"
as far north as the Juba.75 This is
just
south of the
city
of
Mogadishu
in the
general
area of the earliest settlements referred to above. The
Arab settlements
during
this
period
which are best
documented, however,
were further south on Pemba and
Zanzibar,
and also on the mainland as
far south as Kilwa. From here Swahili
(and Arab)
traders introduced the
herb to Bantu settlers. The latter were
mostly
Iron
Age peoples
who
were
expanding
their
population
and
incorporating
new
territory,
inclu-
ding
most of the drier inland areas of
Kenya
and Tanzania and no doubt
northern Zambia and
Katanga (Shaba).
The herb needed no advocate. It
is after all a "social"
plant, basically
associated with human settle-
ments and
given
the warm climate of central Africa it was
capable
of
spreading quite readily.
It would seem
logical
that with the
early
contact and trade
by
Africans from
Angola
cannabis
might
have reached the
Kongo
and Mbundu
by
the
early part
of the sixteenth
century.
This was a
period
of inten-
sive interaction
during
which slaves were traded and
political
alliances
formed. In his discussion of valued items traded
by
the
Kongo, Mbundu,
and
Ndongo,
David
Birmingham76
does not mention cannabis or
anything
related to
it,
but he does show the kind of networks which extended from
the west coast to
peoples
in the interior. The
Portuguese
traders first
moved
up
the Kwanza and contacted the Mbundu.
They
also traded slaves
from the
Kongo,
and these two
groups (the
Mbundu and the
Kongo)
were in
contact with the Lunda and the Luba further east. It was
here,
we
would
suggest,
that cannabis was used in the form of
mfanga
and where
the
phonemic change
occurred so that it was referred to as riamba. This
was also the word
accepted by
the
Portuguese
and
exported
to Brazil with
the slaves.
29
At the same time that cannabis was carried into the interior of
Africa,
Arab traders settled further
south,
and then moved
up
the Zam-
besi River in order to trade with the Rozwi
Empire.
Brian
Fagan
and
D. W.
Phillipson77
refer to a
pipe
"with a male stem" which was un-
earthed at Sebanzi in Zambia.
They
date it as
coming
"from the level
dated cir. A.D.
1200."
In a
personal
communication
Joseph Vogel,
who
is
currently conducting
research in the
area,
informs us that he tends
to treat "the Sebanzi conclusions as
interesting,
worth
investigating
more
fully,
but
necessarily
tentative." It still leaves
us, however,
with an
early
date for the
presence
of a
smoking pipe.78
The Zimbabwe
complex may
offer more
convincing
evidence. Within
an
archaeological
stratum which reached its climax about 1450
A.D.,
Summers found "some
pipes
for
smoking dagga (Indian hemp)."79
He
neither indicates the
depth
of the
particular
find in terms of the
level,
nor whether the ash in the
pipes
was tested for cannabis deriva-
tives. We are thus left with
archaeological
evidence of
smoking pipes
and cannabis in southern Africa no later than the middle of the 15th
century,
and
possibly
earlier.
The
hypothesis regarding
this diffusion would then allow for the
spread
of cannabis from Rhodesia southward or westward into and across
the Kalahari. It would seem
likely
that the
Bergdama by
this date were
already growing
the herb which
they
had received from earlier Khoikhoi
or from their
neighbors
to the
north,
the Ovambo and
Ovimbundu, repre-
senting
the furthest known
spread
westward of the
linguistic
stem
-ang-.
The Ovimbundu refer to
epangue,
a term
very
close to the Ovambo
epangwe.
The
Bergdama speak
of daXab
suggesting
that
they
obtained
knowledge
about
the herb from
Nama-speakers prior
to contact with the Orambo.
While the herb was never of
major
economic
significance throughout
most of Africa it was
recognized
as
having
a
strong
traditional value
and therefore formed
part
of the trade
goods
of
many peoples.
The
hypo-
thesis which has been
presented
in this
paper pointed
at a number of
areas in which more information is needed. The
linguistic picture
is
perhaps
the most
complete.80
Much of the historical and
archaeological
evidence
may
have been clouded
by acceptance
of the
argument
that
nothing
was smoked before the
Portuguese
introduced tobacco.
Currently
I am
involved in an extensive literature
survey
to trace all references to
cannabis use. Such research is
linking
historical information with the
modern situation. As its users
migrated
to urban
areas,
cannabis has
gained
in economic
importance
and
finally
its
illegal
status has
placed
an even
greater monetary
value on this ancient herb.
NOTES
The research on which this
paper
is based was
supported
in whole
by
P. H. S. Research Grant D.A. 00387 from the National Institute on
Drug
Abuse. Field work was conducted in southern Africa
during
1972-1974 and
the
analysis
of research data is now
being
concluded. While I
express
my
sincere
gratitude
for the financial
support,
the
findings
are not
necessarily
shared
by
the
granting agency
or
any person
associated with
it.
Appreciation
should also
go
to Drs.
Haig Der-Houssikian,
and David
Niddrie who commented on an earlier draft of this
paper.
30
Richard E. Schultes, "Man and
Marijuana,"
Natural
History,
Vol.
LXXXII,
No.
7,
1973.
2Neville
Chittick,
"Kilwa and the Arab Settlement of the East African
Coast,"
Journal of African
History,
Vol.
IV,
No.
2,
1963.
3Neville
Chittick,
"The 'Shirazi' colonization of East
Africa,"
Journal
of African
History,
Vol.
VI,
No.
3,
1965.
4Franz
Rosenthal,
The
Herb,
Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1971, p.
160.
5Ahmad M.
Khalifa,
"Traditional
patterns
of Hashish use in
Egypt,"
in
Vera Rubin
(ed.),
Cannabis and
Culture,
The
Hague:
Mouton Pub-
lishers, 1975, p.
199.
6A. Mc
Martin,
"The introduction of
sugarcane
to Africa and its
early
dispersal,"
The South African
Sugar
Year
Book, 1969-70, Durban,
1970, p. 16.
7See the excellent discussion in M. D. D.
Newitt, Portuguese
settlement
on the Zambezi, New York: Africana Publishing Co., 1973.
Brian
Fagan,
Southern
Africa,
New York: Frederick A.
Praeger,
1965.
9Chittick,
"'Shirazi' colonization," p.
271.
B. M. Fagan,
"Early trade and raw materials in South Central
Africa,"
Journal of African
History,
Vol.
X, 1969, p.
10.
lJ.
Vansina,
"Long-Distance trade routes in Central
Africa,"
Journal of
African
History,
Vol.
III,
1962.
12Jacques Nenquin, "Notes on some early pottery
cultures in northern
Katanga,"
Journal of African
History,
Vol.
IV,
No.
1,
1963, p.
236.
13N.
Sutherland-Harris, "Trade and the Rozwi
Mambo,"
in Richard
Gray
&
David
Birmingham (eds.),
Pre-Colonial African
Trade,
London: Oxford
University Press, 1970,
and S. S.
Dornan,
Pygmies
and Bushmen of the
Kalahari,
London:
Seeley,
Service & Co.
Ltd,
1925.
13aH.
Vedder, Quellen zur Geschichte von Siidwest
-
Afrika,
Vol. 2.
Type-
script
in State
Archives,
Windhoek.
14See
the discussion in Brian M. du
Toit, "Dagga
- the
history
and ethno-
graphic setting
of Cannabis sativa in southern
Africa,"
in Vera
Rubin
(ed.),
Cannabis and
Culture,
The
Hague:
Mouton
Publishers,
1975.
15Ibid.
31
16Phillip V. Tobias, "Physique of a desert
folk,"
Natural
History,
Vol.
70, 1961,
p.
24.
17Dornan, "Pygmies... ," p.
122.
18R. R.
Inskeep,
"The
Archaeological Background,"
in Monica Wilson and
Leonard
Thompson (eds.),
The Oxford
History
of South
Africa,
New
York,
Oxford
University Press, 1969, p.
32.
19Fagan,
Southern
Africa, p.
93.
20Leon
Jacobsen, personal communication, September,
1975.
N. J.
Van der Merwe, "Cannabis Smoking
in
13th-14th Century Ethiopia:
Chemical
Evidence,"
in Vera Rubin
(ed.),
Cannabis and Culture. The
Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975.
22du Toit, "Dagga..."
T. Asuni,
"Socio-psychiatric problems of cannabis in
Nigeria,"
Bulletin on
Narcotics,
Vol.
16,
1964.
A. Tella,
et. al., "Indian hemp smoking," Journal of Social Health in
Nigeria,
Vol.
40, 1967, p.
40.
T. A.
Lambo, "Medical and Social problems of
drug
addiction in west
Africa,"
Bulletin on
Narcotics,
Vol.
17, 1965, pp.
3 and 6.
A. Boroffka,
"Mental illness and Indian
hemp
in
Lagos,"
Bulletin on
Narcotics,
Vol.
18, 1966, p.
378.
E. C.
Sagoe,
"Narcotics control in
Ghana,"
Bulletin on
Narcotics,
Vol.
18, 1966, p.
8.
28Brian M. du
Toit,
"Historical and Cultural factors of
drug
use
among
Indians in South
Africa,"
Journal of
Psychedelic Drugs (in press).
29Rosenthal,
The
Herb, pp.
19-20.
P30aul Kollmann,
The Victoria
Nyanza,
London: Swam Sonnenschein,
1899.
31H.
A. Junod, The Life of a Southern African
Tribe,
New York: Univer-
sity Books,
1962
(originally published
in
1912).
32V.
Clement Doke, The Lambas of Northern
Rhodesia,
London:
George
G.
Harris,
1931.
33Helen
Codere,
"The Social and Cultural Context of Cannabis use in
Rwanda,"
in Vera Rubin
(ed.),Cannabis
and
Culture,
The
Hague:
Mouton
Publishers,
1975.
32
34By deleting
the
typical
Bantu noun
prefixes
and
allowing
for some
pho-
netic
adaptation,
the reader will be able to see the noun-stem
-ang-
or
slight phonemic
variations on this form.
35J. M. Watt and M. G.
Breyer-Brandwijk,
The Medicinal and Poisonous
Plants of Southern
Africa, Edinburgh:
E. And S.
Livingstone, 1932,
p.
156.
36Ibid, p.
157.
37G. S.
Nienaber, Hottentots,
Pretoria: Van
Schaik, 1963, p.
157.
38Ibid, p.
243.
39See also in this
regard
the discussion under diffusion
hypothesis
no. 5 below.
40Vide
Nienaber, Hottentots, pp.
241-242 and R.
Raven-Hart,
Cape
Good
Hope
1652-1702: The First
Fifty
Years of Dutch Colonization as
seen
by
callers,
Vol.
1, Cape
Town:
Balkema, 1971, p.
507.
M. W.
Hilton-Simpson, Land and people of the
Kasai,
London: Con-
stable and Co.
Ltd., 1911, p.
156.
42Harry
H.
Johnston,
British Central
Africa,
London: Methuen & Co.,
1897,
pp.
607-608.
43A.
Keane, Man, past and present, Cambridge:
The
University Press,
1920, p.
114.
44Johnston,
British Central
Africa, p.
608.
45H.
Wissman,
My
second
journey through equatorial
Africa,
London:
Chatto
& Windus, 1891, p.
308.
46E.
Torday, On the trail of the
Bushongo,
London:
Seeley,
Service
6
Co., Ltd., 1925, p.
271.
47M.
R. P. Dorman, A Journal of a tour in the
Congo
Free
State,
London:
Kegan Paul, 1905, p.
88.
A. L.
Cureau, Savage man in central Africa: A
Study
of
primitive
races
in the French
Congo.
London: T. Fisher
Unavin, 1915, p.
229.
49Ibid., p.
238.
50Richard F.
Burton,
The Lake
Regions
of Central
Africa,
Vol.
II,
New
York: Horizon
Press, 1961, p.
70.
51Herbert
Ward,
A Voice from the
Congo,
London: William
Heinemann, 1910,
pp.
265-266.
33
52Jose' Pedro Machado, Dicionario
Etimolo'gico
da
Lingua Portuguesa (2nd
Edition),
Vol.
II, Lisbon, 1967, p.
812.
53Childs
points
out that the Ovimbundu
recognize
a common
humanity
with
their southern and northern
neighbors
who are seen either as
"people"
or "comrades." "Similar
recognition
is not extended to the eastern
and south-eastern
neighbors
who are
lumped together
under the dero-
gatory
term
'va Ngangela'
or
ovingangela.
This eastern
region
as
far as the Great Lakes was the
happy hunting-ground
of the slave-
traders..." (G.
M.
Childs,
Umbundu
Kinship
and
Character,
London:
Oxford
University Press, 1949, p. 189).
54Wilfrid D.
Hambly,
The Ovimbundu of
Angola,
Field Museum of Natural
History,
Publication
329, Chicago, 1934, p.
152.
55
55. Gossweiler,
F. A.
Mendonga,
Carta
Fitogeografica
de
Angola,
Edicao,
Do
Gog'erno geral, Angola,
1939.
56J.
do Espirito
Santo,
Nomes Verna'culos de Algumas plantas da
Guin4
Portuguesa,
Lisbon:
Estudos,
Ensaios E. documentos No.
104,
1963.
57Jose
Maria
d'Eca
de
Queiros,
Seara dos
Tempos
-
Harvest of
time,
Lis-
bon:
Empresa
Nacional de Publicidade
(1969?), p.
290.
58J. M.
Watt, "Dagga
in South
Africa,"
Bulletin on
Narcotics,
Vol.
13,
1961, p.
9.
59Theodore James, "Dagga: A review of fact and
fancy,"
South African
Medical
Journal,
Vol.
44, 1970, p.
575.
60J. E.
Morley and A. D. Bensusan, "Dagga:
tribal uses and
customs,"
Medical
Proceedings,
Vol.
17, p.
409.
A. J. H.
Goodwin, "The origins of certain African food
plants,"
South
African Journal of
Science,
Vol.
36, 1939, p.
456.
62James
Walton,
"The
Dagga pipes
of Southern
Africa,"
Researches of the
National
Museum,
Vol.
1, 1963, p.
85.
63Frederick J.
Simoons,
"Some
questions
on the economic
prehistory
of
Ethiopia,"
Journal of African
History,
Vol.
VI, 1965, pp.
11-12.
64
van der
Merwe,
"Cannabis
Smoking...," p.
80.
65Rosenthal,
The
Herb, p.
45.
66Ibid, p.
65.
67Merrick
Posnansky,
"The
Origins
of
Agriculture
and Iron
working
in
Southern
Africa,"
in Merrick
Posnansky (ed.),
Prelude to East
African
History,
London: Oxford
University Press, 1966, p.
89.
34
68Richard Pankhurst,
"The trade of Southern and Western
Ethiopia
and
the Indian Ocean Parts in the Nineteenth and
early
Twentieth
Centuries,"
Journal of
Ethiopian
Studies,
Vol.
III,
No.
2,
1965.
69M. Abir,
"Salt,Trade and Politics in
Ethiopia
in the
ZThmihai Mgsafent,"
Journal of
Ethiopian Studies,
Vol.
IV,
No.
2,
1966.
70
Richard
Pankhurst,
"The
'Banyan'
or Indian Presence at
Massawa,
the
Dahlak Islands and the Horn of
Africa,"
Journal of
Ethiopian
Studies,
Vol.
XII,
No.
1, 1974, p.
186.
71
A.
H.
Dunhill, "Pipe Smoking,"
Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1969, p.
1098.
72
In
this
regard
see also Brian M. du
Toit, "Continuity
and
Change
in
cannabis use
by
Africans in South
Africa,"
Journal of Asian and
African
Studies,
Vol.
XI,
Nos.
3-4, 1976,
and Brian M. du
Toit,
"Ethnicity
and
Patterning
in South African
drug use,"
Brian M.
du Toit
(ed.), Drugs, Rituals,
and Altered States of
Consciousness,
Rotterdam: A. A.
Balkema,
1976.
73Berthold
Laufer,
"The Introduction of Tobacco into
Africa,"
in B.
Laufer,
W. D.
Hambly,
and
Ralph Linton,
Tobacco and its Use in
Africa,
Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago, 1930, p.
10.
74
van der
Merwe,
"Cannabis
Smoking...," p.
78.
75Roland
Oliver,
"The
problem
of the Bantu
expansion,"
in J. D.
Fage
and
R. A. Oliver
(eds.),
Paper
in African
Prehistory,
Cambridge,
the
University Press,
1970.
76David Birmingham,
Trade and Conflict in
Angola,
Oxford: Clarendon
Press,
1966.
77Brian M.
Fagan &
D. W.
Phillipson,
"Sebanzi: The Iron
Age Sequence
at
Lochinvar,
and the
Tonga,"
Journal of the
Royal
Anthropological
Institute,
Vol.
95,
Part
2, 1965, p.
261.
78Phillipson suggested that,
since these
pipes,
and
particularly
the
oldest bowl referred to in our
discussion, predated
1492 when
smok-
ing
tobacco was introduced to the Old World from the
New,
these
people
smoked some other form of tobacco or cannabis sativa.
(D.
W.
Phillipson, "Early Smoking Pipes
from Sebanzi
Hill, Zambia,"
Arnoldia,
Vol.
1,
No.
40, 1965, p.
2).
One
problem
with this
suggestion
is that these
pipe
bowls seem not to have been
parts
of
water
pipes.
79Roger Summers,
Ancient Ruins and vanished civilizations in southern
Africa, Cape
Town: T. V.
Bulpin, 1971, p.
164 and illustrated
p.
226.
35
80We can reconstruct the diffusion of the term
bhang
in the
following
way.
It is
hoped
that
many
of the
questions
which still remain
will be answered as the research continues.
bh(ang)
b
(ang)hi
bh(ang)
i
Hindi
Swahili
Great Lakes
inj (ag )a
mf
(ang)
a
ep (ang)
ue
ep (ang)we
Rwanda
Kongo
Ovimbundu
Ovambo
mb
(ang)
e
uluw(ang)
ula
mb
(anj)i
mb
(anz)he
nts(ang)
u
leb
(ak )e
p(ats)e
Thonga
Lamba
Shona
Venda
Zulu
Sotho
Sotho

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