Page 105 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 13(1) (2025)

Cannabis: Hashish and Bhang Writing in the early sixteenth century, the
Recent research suggests that cultivated Can- Andalusian diplomat known as Leo Africanus
nabis sp. (hemp) appeared in Central Europe (al-Hasan Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi) de-
as early as the Copper or Bronze Age (McPart- scribed how the inhabitants of Tunis were con-
land et al. 2018, 638–639). However, the earliest suming a compound called lhasis, which made
confirmed evidence of cannabis smoking comes users ‘laugh, disport, and dally’ as if inebriat-
from wooden braziers dated between 2,400 and ed, while also being ‘marvelously provoked unto
2,600 years ago, excavated from the Jirzankal lust’ (Africanus 1963, 722).
cemetery in the Pamir Plateau (Tashkurgan Ta- In his Colóquios dos Simples (1563), Garcia da
jik Autonomous County, Xinjiang, China) (Ren Orta noted the use of bangue, a cannabis-based
et al. 2019, 6). The plant is also documented in product taxed by the Portuguese crown (Matos
the earliest known Chinese materia medica, 2000, 6). He described it as a mixture of pow-
Shen-nung Pen-ts’ao Ching, dated to 2,737 BCE, dered leaves and seeds that ‘inebriates and makes 105
and Scythian ritual use through inhalation was one lose his senses’ (Orta 1563, 25). He also reject-
described by Herodotus in his Histories (fifth ed the idea that Cannabis indica was the same
century BCE) (Guerra Doce and López Sáez as the locally grown Portuguese hemp (Canna-
2006, 14). bis sativa, locally known as alcanave). According
The recreational use of hashish appears to to this matter, the 1598 account of John Huygh-
have been known in the Iberian Peninsula by en van Linschoten’s voyage to the East Indies re-
at least the fourteenth century. A passage from ports that bangue was ‘very much used by the
Nufāḍa II by Lisan Ibn al-Khatib (1313–1374) re- Indians, and likewise by some Portingales, but
counts how Muhammad VI of Granada exposed most by the slaves thereby to forget their labour’
secret gatherings where hashish was consumed, (Tiele 1885, 116, emphasis added).
stating that himself had attended such events Similarly, João dos Santos (1891), writing in
(Escorial MS 1.755, fol. 65v, as cited in Fernán- 1586, noted that bangue was used in East Africa.
dez-Puertas 1997, 17–18). Later, a 1570 manu- He described how dried leaves and stalks were
script from the same area also refers to hashish crushed into powder and consumed with water
as an inebriating substance ‘cheaper than wine’, when necessary, just like two centuries later in Exploring Cannabis and Opium in Post-Medieval Portugal and Related Nations
reportedly used by both Moors and Christians the Granada Kingdom.
(Castillo 1853, 31). Though smoking cannabis did not become
Regarding the association of pipes with widespread until the nineteenth century, we
hashish consumption between the tenth and fif- can point to events such as the monthly séanc-
teenth centuries in the Iberian Peninsula, a pri- es of the Club des Hashischins held in Paris be-
or study (Sousa et al. 2024) contextualized cer- tween 1844 and 1849 (Gautier 1863, 429–458).
tain so-called pipas de hachís (hashish pipes) as Shortly thereafter, the Portuguese botanist and
likely later productions. Nonetheless, the possi- nobleman Francisco Manuel de Melo Breyner,
bility that these objects were used to smoke sub- Conde de Ficalho, described riamba, also known
stances other than tobacco cannot be entirely as Congo tobacco, as a form of Cannabis indica
dismissed. that was smoked communally by Africans using
In a different context, during the early mod- a water pipe called a mutopa.
ern period, hemp was essential for ship rigging, had Ficalho argued that this habit had origi-
many industrial uses and therapeutic properties, nally been introduced by Arabs into Eastern
though not primarily for smoking (Lopes 2013, 62, Africa and was subsequently transmitted to
121–124; Lozano Cámara 2017). However, as glob- Southern Africa and eventually Brazil. He also
al exchanges intensified, certain psychoactive hab- condemned the practice, asserting that enslaved
its may have been gradually adopted and adapted. people who adopted this ‘lethal habit’ were lost