Vintage News Articles & Finds

[billycw]

Money for old rope continued...


With the passage of the Poor Act in 1834, both the poor and criminal were made to pick Oakum at length... (someone laughed at that)

Men picking oakum at Whitechapel Casual Ward, 1902

Women picking Oakum at the poorhouse, 1906


"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone"

- Pink Floyd

 

[billycw]

The Dance of Death by Michael Wolgemut, 1493


420 Dances with Death

While digging up gold your bound to find a nugget unrelated to the gold you seek...

Just such a nugget jumped out at me while digging...

While looking through Alberto Martini's 'danza macabra europea', WW1 series of propaganda lithographs, something kept popping out at me...

The #420 sprinkled throughout the art...

Like a funyun trail of history, I followed...

"The act of the European Dance of the Dead" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915

"Acrobatism" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915

"Turnip the Prussians wanted to plant in Paris" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915

 

[billycw]

420 Dances with Death continued...

"Carnival of 1915" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915


Feeling like Jim Carey in 23, the puzzle was needing to be solved...

Then at last a hint... The all mighty 420 emblazoned on a giant shell being carried...

"The ordeal of the Prussian army" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915



A little more digging turns up the answer to our 420 conundrum... 'The Big Bertha'...

Turns out that a mythical massive German mortar called 'The Krupp Gamma-Gerät' aka Big Bertha shot a devistatingly huge 420 millimeter round...

These were used during WW1 like in the Bombing of Belgrade in October 1915, creating much fear and myth in its destruction ability...

German WW1 - The Krupp Gamma-Gerät 42cm mortar aka 'Big Bertha'


With the shells weighing between 1,600 and 2,000 pounds and having ranges of up to eight miles, the Big Bertha is a dinosaur of death...

British War Correspondents examining a dud German 420mm shell, September 9, 1917


So the legend goes...

The time 420 danced with death...

"all the emperors in osteria" 'Danza Macabra Europea' - WW1 Propaganda lithographs by Alberto Martini, 1915

 

[billycw]

Fayette County, Kentucky 1942

 

[billycw]

"Narcotics agents with over 400 lbs. of marijuana"

"Narcotics agents (left to right) Capt. Edward Sheehy, George M. Belk and James A. Flynn pose with packages of marijuana in suitcases." 1963

P.S. if you don't want me to post your full name for being a asshole, you shouldn't have been an asshole

 

[billycw]

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow;
learn as if you were to live forever."

- Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi sitting behind his spinning wheel (Charkha) reading. 1946

 

[Betterhaff]

View Image
Fayette County, Kentucky 1942

Back in the early 70’s I got a call from a friend and he said I should come over. He said another friend just got back from a road trip and has something interesting. So I go over and this guy had garbage bags full of pot. I asked where it came from and was told they were driving on a country road and noticed all this pot growing so they went and got some bags and harvested it. I told them it was feral hemp and it won’t get you high. They looked at me sideways and then said maybe I was right…they quick dried some and had already smoked about 10 joints, lol. They found it in Indiana.

 

[billycw]

Enjoyed the story Betterhaff, thanks for sharing. Have a buddy from Illinois with very similar stories of "smoking himself a headache"

 

[billycw]

"For all he had one word alone,
One clod of dirt in their faces thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

His name bestrode the seas like Death.
The waters trembled at his breath.

This is the tale of how he fell,
Of the long sweep and the heavy swell,
And the rope that dragged him down to hell."


- The Hemp: A Virginia Legend

The Literary Digest, March 4, 1916

 

[billycw]

"When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world "No, you move."

-Steve Rogers

Captain America #110 (1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils and colors by Jim Steranko, inks by Joe Sinnott

 

[geneva_sativa]

there is so much truth in these comics

 

[billycw]

there is so much truth in these comics

Some real talk for sure

I still cant get over the oakum. my families been sellin that stuff since since the 70's at the shops. now I can say truthfully they were slangin dope before I was born! haha

To funny, believe almost all families have a hemp branch in the family tree if not by the roots...

Its a foggy day, vision is blurry, trying to make out shapes coming into clarity... The outlines appear to form as the white smoke drifts... All of a sudden its... its... Hemp

hemp drying near irrigation ditch in Damascus, Syria - 1951

 

[gekolite]

if you have ever heard of or saw a leaded pipe joint , they all have an oakum base

 

[Cannabologist]

One of the earliest accounts on record of cannabis being smoked in the new world was from Cortez in 1521. Conquering the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico city), Cortez notes the Aztecs smoking of hemp in their pipes...
That's... Incredibly early. It is possible cannabis made its way to that area after Columbus but indeed.. You can't keep us waiting for such references! But that simply seems a little too early, and I suspect Cortez is mistaken. Certain tribes of North American natives (not South American ones) did have access to smoked DMT from phalaris grass, as southern counterparts had a drinkable mixture.

I also have accounts of natives on American soil for sure smoking hemp around 1627, story to come soon...
This seems to make sense as cannabis would have been established in the new world for at least 100 years prior.

Many believe that vikings brought hemp with them to their mythical 'Vinland' (thought to be around present day Massachusetts). If they did make it to 'Vinland' they most certainly would have planted hemp... Some believe this is why there are pocket reports on the east coast by native tribes...
What year would this have been? By my research the earliest cannabis would have made it to North America would have been from European (viking? idk I didn't write it down) sailors in 1606 landing in Canada, and then the waves of English colonists after.

Smithsonian Institute ethnologist W.H. Holmes also indicates that the ancient American Mound Builders both used and smoked 'cannabis sativa' in and around the Hopewell site in Ohio, “friends of the dead deposited with the body not only the fabrics worn during life but a number of skeins of the fiber from which the fabrics were probably made. This fiber has been identified as that of the Cannabis sativa” W.H. Holmes
What year is this supposedly?

I should note there is a large group of Tuscarora that believe they had and used Cannabis before the Europeans landed...


Many pieces of the puzzle to come

Ya can't leave us hanging like this!!! While I would say all of that is unlikely in regards to cannabis (we do not readily find any evidence of cannabis in any archeological sites as we do other plants/drugs and artifacts), who knows? You can't leave us hanging!!!

 

[billycw]

Ya can't leave us hanging like this!!! While I would say all of that is unlikely in regards to cannabis (we do not readily find any evidence of cannabis in any archeological sites as we do other plants/drugs and artifacts), who knows? You can't leave us hanging!!!

Sorry for the absence, security forced getting hard drives to a safe spot. Will return in colder climate...

I will try to answer the questions without my files to look up exact details from,

"One of the earliest accounts on record of cannabis being smoked in the new world was from Cortez in 1521. Conquering the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan (present day Mexico city), Cortez notes the Aztecs smoking of hemp in their pipes...


That's... Incredibly early. It is possible cannabis made its way to that area after Columbus but indeed.. You can't keep us waiting for such references! But that simply seems a little too early, and I suspect Cortez is mistaken. Certain tribes of North American natives (not South American ones) did have access to smoked DMT from phalaris grass, as southern counterparts had a drinkable mixture."

I thought so too... I actually had the same thought on Columbus being the original source being 30 years after his landing. Trade would of carried precious seed inland...
Believe I pulled the reference from 'Hernán Cortés' 1st or 2nd letter to King V in 1520ish. I'll have to look in the hard drives when I can for exact wording.


I also have accounts of natives on American soil for sure smoking hemp around 1627, story to come soon...

This seems to make sense as cannabis would have been established in the new world for at least 100 years prior.


This story is for sure and glorious, I will be telling in detail soon...


Many believe that vikings brought hemp with them to their mythical 'Vinland' (thought to be around present day Massachusetts). If they did make it to 'Vinland' they most certainly would have planted hemp... Some believe this is why there are pocket reports on the east coast by native tribes...


What year would this have been? By my research the earliest cannabis would have made it to North America would have been from European (viking? idk I didn't write it down) sailors in 1606 landing in Canada, and then the waves of English colonists after.


This one is a fun one... First explorers in the 1500's report hemp growing in canada upon arriving(exact quotes from journals to come)...


Vikings made it to North America in at least 1000 CE as proof by the settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. 2 Norse tales tell of Leif Eriksson continuing down the coast in both the Grænlendinga saga (“Saga of the Greenlanders”) and Eiríks saga rauða (“Erik the Red’s Saga”). Most believe 'Vinland' is as low as Cape Cod... This is also around the year 1000 CE...

Now just like Columbus, Vikings carried hemp seed on journey's. In the burial site of Oseberg in Vestfold, Norway, a complete viking ship was unearthed... In the ship laid two females, on the older female was a pouch. Laying just outside the pouch was cannabis seeds, when the pouch was opened, cannabis seeds were also found inside(most likely the seeds spilled out from the pouch on burial). The lack of hemp textile's or cordage at the site point to spiritual use... This burial was dated at 850 CE...

Oseberg Viking Ship

Oseberg burial mound, Vestfold, Norway 1904

Oseberg burial mound, Vestfold, Norway 1904


Smithsonian Institute ethnologist W.H. Holmes also indicates that the ancient American Mound Builders both used and smoked 'cannabis sativa' in and around the Hopewell site in Ohio, “friends of the dead deposited with the body not only the fabrics worn during life but a number of skeins of the fiber from which the fabrics were probably made. This fiber has been identified as that of the Cannabis sativa” W.H. Holmes

What year is this supposedly?

The find comes from the 'Death mask mound' at a Hopewell site in Ohio dated to around 400BC... The actual source comes from W.H. Holmes in his 1891 study for the Smithsonian institute.


Hope that helps a bit until I can dive in deeper...

 

[Cannabologist]

Bill you're like a girl who sits there and rubs on you and makes out with you for 3 hours and then goes home.


My balls ache. ACHE.


I donno. Some of those dates are just too early to accept... Its a hard sell cannabis could also grow that far north at that time (could it? Is that right am I making things up?).. HEHEHeh.. Well, you could, IF it was warmer at the time than it is today, which depending when they made the migrations is very likely actually (hello global warming lol).. Either way it is certain making their way further south from Canada to Massachusetts yeah you could grow lots of cannabis..

This is weird for sure. The problem with accounts from the past is that people from the past are crazy stupid liars and so generally unreliable often times, especially when it comes to cultural practices and how they are interpreted.

Unfamiliarity with similar looking plants or plant mixtures could lead to people labeling what they thought as hemp being smoked, or tobacco, or anything, and really it is something else - but they label the mixture as such without knowing, assuming well, they must have the same stuff I am smoking....

Most people especially in the past also did not know of the connection between hashish and cannabis, nor would know that hashish comes from cannabis-hemp, unless they had such hearth wisdom or extensive formal education. Most cultures never smoked herbal cannabis, I am unaware if this is how vikings did it, but the typical method in Europe would have been to make a decoction or other potion or food item, not recognizing the similarity to this and smoked hashish from the east...

Most European cannabis also, though it could have plenty of THC, was not selected for bud structure or trichomes density or any of that like ganja, and so is not good cannabis for smoking, but can be accumulated and made into tinctures and extracts.

This is a misnomer many people have about European cannabis until the 1940-50s as I'm sure you are aware, that European cannabis could be as potent as cannabis from eastern sources (or is low in THC always, and only good for fiber.. as such cannabis is a relatively new invention of selective breeding), though not as yielding... I as I'm sure you do have many ancient accounts from throughout Europe that prove this, as it is hearth wisdom that sages, witches, and doctors alike, would use (European) hemp within preparations for a number of maladies, and that such has a psychoactive effect. If people were only growing and using low THC cannabis in Europe as many believe, how were they getting ultra high off preparations made from European hemp?? Because it is/was high in THC as it's eastern cannabis counterparts....

And! Which means... Much of what you say going to be accurate when it comes to hemp-cannabis smoking and the new world.. It's the dates.. The dates are fucky... It's those damn Vikings! Fuck! Lol

Its plenty plausible thus that natives were smoking cannabis within 30 years after Columbus on the new world. Before that is just.. Well, it's iffy. What about testing of archeological finds of natives' pipe residues for cannabis? Has this even ever been done, most assuming cannabis was not smoked on the new world (and thus most studies will only result in tobacco residues being tested for, if at all?)... I do not believe to my knowledge there are many such studies testing for residues from pre 1700s, 1600s, and earlier.. (I'm sure there are BUT are they testing for cannabis compounds I bet they didn't) and they are likely hard to come by as such residues will break down over that much time span unless properly preserved. Hum.. Scratching myself here on this one.

 

[billycw]

I'm going to apologize for more 'blue brain' ahead of time... Because I haven't even started with Asian explorer's and the west coast of America... I'll let that one sit there for a while...


To get back on to the questions at hand, its hard to say exactly and I agree with much of your frustration and thoughts. Look at modern day lore of OG, Chem, Bubba, GSC, G13, ext and how confusing history gets... And that is just within the last 30ish years of origin.

I agree with much of what is written needs interpreting which of course muddies fact. Unfortunately its all we have to go on to point us where to study further(i.e. residue analysis, folklore stories, ect). Now what you find and getting mainstream on board the ride...

Stepping back and looking at North America, we have to at the very least accept Vikings were in North America soil in 1000CE. Would they have planted hemp at a new explorer colony... From their past practices we have to assume Yes...

How far down the coast they made it is debatable, but if the Norse folklore of a Nova Scotia colony camp is correct(which it is) then we have to believe their accounts of a even more southern camp 'Vinland' is true...

Did they plant hemp in 'Vinland' where they claimed everything grew even climate enough for grapes? I'm going to again look at their practices and say Yes...

The other piece of the puzzle is what happened to these colonies? Did they all leave together back to homeland or like history has told us, some stranglers and those that have intermingled stayed behind?


On the first expedition into present day Virginia by the French Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, he notes in his journal-

"We found those folkes to be more white than those that we found before, being clad with certain leaves that hang on boughs of trees, which they sewe together with threds of wilde hemp..."

-Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524


Accepted belief is that all of these early accounts are misidentification of dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum)...

dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum)


For an average person living in that time, much less a seaman, even more so an explore not to recognize common hemp (cannabis sativa), hard to swallow.

The first account we have of Canada also includes hemp sighting by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1541. From his journals-

"The land groweth fulle of Hempe which groweth of it selfe, which is as good as possibly may be seen, and as strong."

-Jacques Cartier in 1541

Could a French man be misidentifying a plant well known in his homeland, possible... sure...


What we can be absolutely 100% sure of is that hemp was grown in Canada in 1606.

In Port Royal, Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia, Canada same as the Viking colony) under Samuel Champlain, French botanist Louis Hebert planted Canada's first "official" Hemp crop in 1606...

Louis Hebert stamp



Interestingly enough Louis Hebert was also a well known apothecaryist and recognized as the first Canadian apothecary...

Louis Hebert


So much testing, research and history yet to be discovered its hard to use definitive statements with hemp/cannabis in North America, but all the possibilities are there...

 

[billycw]

"When you drink the water,
remember the spring."

-Chinese proverb

1922 Japanese farmer watering field

 

[Cannabologist]

I agree... Especially like you say when it comes to strain names... Which is why I don't often rely on such names, but rely on my nose, eyes, and experience...

Though in this regard the reason is all the older stuff is gone, crossed and recrossed and so on. So yes... In thinking what has come about in 30 years... We really can't imagine what the past 1000 has been like!!

I'm mostly unaware of Vikings being in the new world circa 1000 AD... I know I've heard things like this, I'll have to research more and see what this is all about, it is not very mainstream as far as I know.

I'd disagree slightly on "common people" recognizing and knowing hemp.. We really can't know what people would know back then. For sure many people knew, but plenty didn't. Many people who do not use or are around cannabis would hardly recognize it, particularly if growing, and less recognize uses. They especially (in Europe) would not make the hashish connection.

People would and could know "this is hemp", but to my knowledge quite a few things were called "hemp" (with various spellings of hemp also)... Further confusing nomenclature is that there are simple misidentifications as well.

But captains and traveled seamen.. Sure, I can agree with you. That account of Cartier is also striking..

So, it does really just make the issue more confusing... I have quite a few slides of the misconceptions about male and female plants (not just cannabis plants) from back in time earlier on, one major one being that most plant sexes were erroneously assigned, and the female plants that bore seeds, being labeled as males or considered the masculine form of the plant. This is a huge point that I don't believe many realize or consider, it took many years of study before I stumbled upon that point at well, which explains much in the way of confusion regarding plants both cannabis and in general. This type of practice did not start to change until the 16 and 1700s I believe.

The only problem I find with a lot of this though is the lack of cannabis at archeological sites in the Americas... Either researchers are not being careful enough in looking/testing, or it isn't there. I would think, if cannabis were more common, we'd have found it in archeological finds... Well, we know cannabis is common enough by the 1600s, but earlier...

.....

What do you think about ambrosia or soma (more, in particular, it's identity)??

I have some.. Crazy cray speculation when my mind wanders high... Many ancient, very ancient, accounts, are of "the gods", people who are highly skilled, super intelligent, and long lived! And one point to this is they drink, or eat, a particular food/fruit, which keeps them young. I have been speculating this is (well, was), a real plant, and did exactly that (ie. healed the body, aided in rejuvenation, and gave long lived live, likely by regenerating telomeres, allowing for vast life extension).

And the cultivators, the ruling classes, who grew this plant, among other secrets, kept it from the masses of course. Eventually because of climate changes, or other issues, the plant went extinct, and so too it's knowledge, as with the ruling classes who used it, and used it to rule. Perhaps too people overthrew their "gods", and again, the knowledge gets lost.

Indeed this has happened with plants we know of, described in ancient texts.. But, the mythical ambrosia is a bit more elusive. I am coming more and more as I get higher lol to believe it indeed was a real plant, growing (grown) in and around the Mediterranean/Egypt/Middle East, and used to the point of or otherwise for some reason gone extinct.

I believe this plant did exactly what is said - that it aided in regeneration, warding off illnesses (immune booster), and would keep one young, that it would in effect slow or stop aging.

If we want to get REALLY crazy, this plant could fit into ideas of advanced pre-civilizations ala Graham Hancock... I do tend to think quite a bit about cannabis's travels for the last 10k+ years, and what people have been doing with it, and the idea that is was one of the first cultivated plants to begin with... And given such findings that rumble the pillars of typical history... Speculation is the game. My skeptical science nature always fights my experience fraught with ghosts, goblins, werewolves, ufos, and visions aplenty.

Perhaps it WAS ancient aliens... But for someone whos seen ghosts when they say aliens I want to see aliens!

 

[billycw]

If hemp was in the New World precolumbian, I believe it would have only been in small pockets around the northeast... This would make archeological evidence very hard to find but residue analysis on ancient pipes of the area would be where I would look first...


Ambrosia... Now your just opening a can of worms


I really believe Ambrosia of the gods was Cannabis...

I'll go into fine detail on a dedicated post later but here are some key points to my beliefs...


The elixir of life was called many things and used in many ways. As a food it was called 'Ambrosia', as a drink it was refereed to as 'Nectar'. But its uses don't stop there...

It was used by the gods as a perfume like in Homer's Iliad


"brought ambrosia, and put it under the nose of each man, and it smelled very sweet"

-Homer


Ambrosia was also the gods anointing oil...

"Thetis anoints Achilles with ambrosia" 17th - 18th century engraving by Johann Balthasar Probst


But most telling was the use of Ambrosia as clothing...

In Homers 'Odyssey' when Diomedes attacks Aphrodite, we find that Aphrodite is wearing a veil made of Ambrosia...


"the spear immediately perforated the skin, through the ambrosial veil, which the Graces themselves had made"

-Homer


We also find in Homer describe the use of Ambrosia as sandals...


"Nor Hermes disobey'd, but swiftly bound
The ambrosial sandals his fair feet around.
The golden sandals that his flight unbear
O'er earth and ocean, fleet as fleetest air"

-Homer


That Ambrosia sure has a lot of uses