the "real" landrace debate

[swayambunath]

420empire, you are right that this topic is breeding bad vibes, but it is a simple fact that there does not seem to be any evidence of cannabis in the New World before European contact. It is not a big deal, it's just the way it seems to be. It's like arguing the existence of potatoes in Europe before 1492; unlikely in the extreme.
Why is it important to you that this should be in contest? Honest question.

 

[Gert Lush]

I guess Gert is adressing the above comment to me, and a few others,

Nope, I am definitely not addressing it to you.
Put your mind at rest on that.


Not addressing it to "a few others" either. I'd have thought it was pretty obvious who I was addressing it to, but hey - I've learnt to be frugal in my needs and not to expect much....

 

[Gert Lush]

Asia...

Where MOST of the beautiful plants are from...
unbelievable what they have given man!!!

Nice to see you back "OLDPro", hope the last few years have been easy on you!

 

[Gert Lush]

If anyone has any information or even intelligent speculation on the origins of American landraces, especially Mexicans and Colombians I'd really love to hear it. Does anyone think the Conquistador possibility is too far-fetched? How long would a strain take to acclimatize as a landrace in a suitable environment? 5, 10, 20 years? Or would it take a whole lot more?

Someone mentioned American grow ops in Colombia in the 30s I think. Is this verified? Seems a bit unlikely what with the Harrison Act on the cards and all that, but hey, it is a strange world.

For sure it was known to the soldiers of Pancho Villa, hence the song "La Cucuracha" which we all know and love. So I can't really see that it was unknown in the area, say, 100 years earlier. Is there any documentation of pre-19th century use in Mexico?

Colombia had a Flamenco tradition back in the mid-19th century, and I see it as highly unlikely that any Flamenco tradition would not have had its weed. Again, it must have been there for some time, but for how long? And from where, initially? Any light shed on these subjects would be most welcome.

 

[mexcurandero420]

I don't think the catholic church approved the use of Cannabis as sacrament in that time and when we look to feral hemp which is growing in the mid west nowadays, it's not very potent to use it for enlightment, although some strains are better to use than ruderalis for breeding.

DON’T FORGET OUR HISTORY

Keep on growing

 

[Gert Lush]

I don't think the catholic church approved the use of Cannabis as sacrament in that time and when we look to feral hemp which is growing in the mid west nowadays, it's not very potent to use it for enlightment, although some strains are better to use than ruderalis for breeding.

Hi curandero,

Midwest ditchweed was never a drug variety of cannabis AFAIK. It is descended from the huge hemp grows that were destined for industrial fabric. As such it has little to do with the Mexi and Colombian varieties.

I am not sure what you mean by the position of the Catholic church. Can you please explain?

I very much doubt that the various Moorish mercenaries and renegade Barbary pirates that came to South America as Conquistador crews would have asked their priests' permission to plant some good old ganj from back home if they settled somewhere. Thing is, these people did have a cannabis culture, and I wonder if they would have just left it behind if they were moving to a new continent. The only point that makes me doubtful of this as the origin of South American strains is that Colombians aren't really anything like Morrocans.

Maybe they adapted to tropical climes, but I think that would have needed quite long timescales.

 

[midwest]

If anyone has any information or even intelligent speculation on the origins of American landraces, especially Mexicans and Colombians I'd really love to hear it.

According to the Erowid timeline, Angolan slaves shipped to Brazil by the Portuguese are the first documented occurrence of cannabis in south america.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_timeline.php

 

[Gert Lush]

According to the Erowid timeline, Angolan slaves shipped to Brazil by the Portuguese are the first documented occurrence of cannabis in south america.

Thanks mate...
I can almost buy that.
My main reservation is that the shipping of slaves was done in the most awful of conditions on the whole. Even assuming that the captured slave was "somehow" allowed to get hold of seeds, how on earth would they have kept them in any sort of decent state? Now the slavers... maybe, that's more of a proposition IMHO.

There is also a huge distance between Colombia and Brazil, even more for Mexico. There were no real road routes AFAIK. Also the presence of slaves in Mexico I think was minimal. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The only thing I think is irrefutable is that there was an established cannabis culture in Mexico and Colombia in the mid-19th. Less so in Brazil, funnily enough.

====

PS. The erowid time-line is interesting enough and there is some very good info, especially re more recent years, but I'd question the entries on some of the earlier dates. There are some sloppy and suspect snippets there.

 

[oldchuck]

There is also a huge distance between Colombia and Brazil, even more for Mexico. There were no real road routes AFAIK. Also the presence of slaves in Mexico I think was minimal. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's a possibility for you to think about, Gert:

The Spanish began colonization in Mexico and Peru in about 1500. In 1545 or so they tried to grow European hemp in Mexico and it was a failure. A photoperiod thing I suspect.

They were also building up a fantastic treasure traffic between the American west coast and China. They would ship gold and silver to the Philippines where they would trade for Chinese silks and other valuable stuff. China was a pretty closed society but they did make trade deals in various places in east Asia.

It doesn't seem like a very big stretch to imagine some of those treasure ships bringing a few, maybe a lot, of our magic beans along with them. There was 200 years of treasure ship traffic between Manila and the main Spanish west coast port of Acapulco between 1500 and 1700. Add three hundred years breeding and adaptation to equatorial American micro climates. That makes the emergence of today's Mexican and western South American landraces consistent with the way cannabis has spread globally.

The Colombian Exchange was global, east and west. I think the slave route from Africa makes sense too.

 

[mexcurandero420]

Hi curandero,
I am not sure what you mean by the position of the Catholic church. Can you please explain?

The catholic church had big influences on society that period, also thanks to the inquisition.

The Inquisition
The Pope who launched the most vicious of the Catholic Church's many campaigns against herb users was Pope Innocent VIII (1432-1492). In 1484 he issued a papal bull called "Summis desiderantes" which demanded severe punishments for magic and witchcraft, which at the time usually meant the use of medicinal and hallucinogenic herbs. Indeed, the papal bull specifically condemned the use of cannabis in worship instead of wine.
The principles Pope Innocent VIII outlined became the basis for the terrifying and torturous witch-hunters' handbook, the Malleus Maleficarum (1487).
Further, Pope Innocent VIII was a major supporter of the vicious Inquisition, and in 1487 he appointed the infamous and sadistic Spanish friar Torquemada as Grand Inquisitor. Under Torquemada's authority, thousands of traditional female healers, users of forbidden plants, Jews, and other "heretics" were viciously tortured and killed during the "witch-hunts" of the Spanish Inquisition. This reign of terror gripped Europe well into the 17th Century.
Catholic Inquisitors tortured and killed many more in Central and South America, where peyote, ololiuqui and other sacred plants of the Aztec culture were prohibited as "works of the devil."
(Ironically, while the Church was slaughtering cannabis users in Europe, the Spanish conquistadors were busy planting hemp around the New World for use as clothing, rope and sails.)

I don't know about pirates but there is a possibillity of course, probably that's why the phrase why the good rum is always gone.

Keep on growing

 

[Paco]

would you stay in Europe as a Moor or Jew? I for one am of the school of thought that there were a lot of folks leaving Europe prior to the inquisition. Any critical eye reading or studying history would see that...
I loath wiki links,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon yet, having worked in alternative cultural geography I find human Diasporas quite fascinating, many are not recorded, and yet there is so much evidence pointing to the fact we know about as much as the oceans as we do of out own history. I think no matter where cannabis sprung up at is not too important, what is, is that is was made for us.

 

[Gert Lush]

Thanks oldchuck!

I really like that. It's one of the first pieces of speculation I've seen that makes sense and stands to reason.

Also, a Chinese/SE Asian origin for Mexi-Lumbo makes a whole lot more sense than the old Morrocan/Maghreb lines.

I'll look more into it, I knew nothing of this trade, nor that Acapulco was the main Spanish port. Thanks ever so much for posting!

Here's a possibility for you to think about, Gert:

The Spanish began colonization in Mexico and Peru in about 1500. In 1545 or so they tried to grow European hemp in Mexico and it was a failure. A photoperiod thing I suspect.

They were also building up a fantastic treasure traffic between the American west coast and China. They would ship gold and silver to the Philippines where they would trade for Chinese silks and other valuable stuff. China was a pretty closed society but they did make trade deals in various places in east Asia.

It doesn't seem like a very big stretch to imagine some of those treasure ships bringing a few, maybe a lot, of our magic beans along with them. There was 200 years of treasure ship traffic between Manila and the main Spanish west coast port of Acapulco between 1500 and 1700. Add three hundred years breeding and adaptation to equatorial American micro climates. That makes the emergence of today's Mexican and western South American landraces consistent with the way cannabis has spread globally.

The Colombian Exchange was global, east and west. I think the slave route from Africa makes sense too.

PS. Do you know if Colombia's trade with Europe was westward (i.e via the East) and then around the Cape of Good Hope, or via the Straits of Magellan?

 

[oldchuck]

I wasn't aware of the significance and extent of this cross Pacific trade until I read a book called "1493, Uncovering the New World Columbus Created," by Charles Mann. Highly recommend.

I believe the trade, communication, between western South America, Columbia and Peru, and Europe went both east and west. Some of the treasure ships would continue east after the stop in Manilla and some convoys made the return trip to Mexico and then transshipped through Mexico. Lots of Chinese artifacts turn up in Mexico City. Magellan was the first to circumnavigate the globe in about 1520 demonstrated the possibility of getting to Asia from Europe by sailing west around the world. The generation following saw the establishment of the global trade routes.

Another cannabis possibility that occurs to me also comes from the book, "1493" regarding the slave trade. Just about as soon as the Portuguese started unloading their slave ships in Brazil the captive Africans started escaping into the bushes. Large numbers of escaped slaves aggregated into independent communities, almost independent nations, in Brazil and the West Indies sugar islands. The stayed on the fringes of European colonies, joined up with native tribal people and pushed far into the wilderness. African weed could have gone with them. How far? Who knows. Evidence is thin.

 

[mexcurandero420]

Thanks Old Chuck

You can download the book

http://bookos.org/g/Mann%20Charles%20C

Keep on growing

 

[med-man]

i just believe that if cannabis was used pre white people, there would be ropes, seeds and maybe stash bags in tombs and hyroglyphs.

all the evidence supports how mushrooms were the key plant , well fungus, that was used for ritual, healing and meditation etc.

med-man

 

[jessethestoner]

There would be thats what people have used it for since we first started cultivating it in the old world.

Homestly the fact people dont understand how its impossible for something like parallel evolution of plants in completely different climates to happen, shows how some people need to bone up on basic archeology and evolutionary principles . If somehow the modern day hemp plant descended from 2 different plants in different times, ecosystems and eomethods of use (as has been said they werent using it for clothe or anything before Europeans came) it would be beyond he most important news in world history as its never happened elsewhere

 

[oldbootz]

you guys have been seriously sidetracked in this topic. the title should be changed to - "when was cannabis first used in the Americas"

maybe its because most of you are from the states that you are focusing in on your small part of this world.

 

[oldbootz]

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.
The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly ``cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.
The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.
The extremely dry conditions and alkaline soil acted as preservatives, allowing a team of scientists to carefully analyze the stash, which still looked green though it had lost its distinctive odour.
"To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent," says the newly published paper, whose lead author was American neurologist Dr. Ethan B. Russo.
Remnants of cannabis have been found in ancient Egypt and other sites, and the substance has been referred to by authors such as the Greek historian Herodotus. But the tomb stash is the oldest so far that could be thoroughly tested for its properties.
The 18 researchers, most of them based in China, subjected the cannabis to a battery of tests, including carbon dating and genetic analysis. Scientists also tried to germinate 100 of the seeds found in the cache, without success.
The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.
Researchers also could not determine whether the cannabis was smoked or ingested, as there were no pipes or other clues in the tomb of the shaman, who was about 45 years old.
The large cache was contained in a leather basket and in a wooden bowl, and was likely meant to be used by the shaman in the afterlife.
"This materially is unequivocally cannabis, and no material has previously had this degree of analysis possible," Russo said in an interview from Missoula, Mont.

Photomicrographs of ancient cannabis. (A) Photograph of the whole cannabis sample being transferred in laminar flow hood. (B) Photomicrograph of leaf fragment at low power displaying non-glandular and amber sessile glandular trichomes. Note retention of chlorophyll and green colour, scale bar=100 μm. (C) Higher power photomicrograph of a single sessile glandular trichome. At least 4 of its 8 secretory cells are clearly visible on the right, and the scar of attachment to the stype cells in the centre, scale bar=25 μm. (D) Low power photomicrograph of a cannabis achene (‘seed’) including the base with a non-concave scar of attachment visible, scale bar=1 mm.

 

[oldchuck]

maybe its because most of you are from the states that you are focusing in on your small part of this world.

I'm not. I'm an American but I'm most interested in where Cannabis Sativa/Indica began as some wild form of the species and then how it traveled throughout the world in the company of humans. The trip to the Americas is one of the last chapters of that story.

 

[jessethestoner]

photo d is interesting, i wonder what kind of trichome coverage the pot had.

one thing that fascinates me is if you took the shaman, cleaned him up, give him a trim and a shave and a suit and you couldn't tell any difference between him and me in terms of who looks like a ancient shaman.
so why do people think we've supercharged weed potency in the last 50 years?