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A Brief Hemp/Human History
Since hemp began it's industrial return to the western world a few years ago, people have become more and more interested in the history of hemp, as it pertains to human history. It is a fascinating and entriging topic because the history of human civilization has been, at least to some degree, manifest due to the amazing uses hemp plants offer. Some historians argue that hemp is a major contributer to the evolution of civilization. Which makes the topic all the more interesting when you consider the prohibition of hemp in the western world over the last 100 years.
Early History
A Brief Hemp/Human History
Cannabis sativa L. - hemp
The term sativa is a derivative of the Latin botanical adjective sativum, meaning cultivated. The earliest recorded usage of sativa as a cannabis term comes from English herbalist William Turner’s, The Names of Herbs (1548), in which Cannabis sativa is the scientific name given to cultivated hemp.
INTRODUCTION
The history of this magical plant known as Cannabis, which includes hemp and marijuana, is as fascinating as the cultural history of humanity. Due to it's many and varied uses, Cannabis infiltrated and influenced the very fabric of culture and civilization. No other plant has been as intrinsic to the human story of civilization, movement, religion, power, control, regulation, labour, war, and globalization as the amazing Cannabis plant.
This history has been largely erased as church and state outlawed and demonized Cannabis many times throughout the ages due to the fear of losing control of the people. Most recently the American, Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 removed all traces of Cannabis from Western Civilization. Cannabis resurgence in the 21st century may be a sign of the new paradigm of global information sharing where social control through propaganda and advertising is diminishing.
While anthropologists continue to piece together humanities transition from nomadic tribes to agriculture based civilizations, archeologist records clearly demonstrate that Cannabis/hemp aided in this process. While the details of this incredible journey are still being gathered, one thing is certain, the history of humans and Cannabis goes back a very long time......at least as far back as there are records of human civilization and archeologist speculation put the date back to the ice age.
EARLY HISTORY, PRE-CIVILIZTION
Cannabis became a valued trade commodity almost as soon as the Pleistocene glaciers were retreating 10,000-12,000 years ago (Abel 1980). Beginning in its postulated native area of Central Asian steppes and Mongolia, (others suggest South Asia, Hindu Kush Mountains and Afghanistan) Cannabis followed the movement and migration of people either seeking new lands, on trade routes or through war and conquest.
Cannabis is one of the first domestic crops which humans learned to selectively breed for specific domestic uses. This domestication may have first been initiated by the Cannabis weed itself and then later by humans utilizing certain plants for certain jobs i.e. tall plants for fiber.
The hypothesis of "camp follower" (Anderson 1954, Shultz 1970) is that Cannabis, as well as other domesticated plants, were essentially weeds that thrive in "dung heaps" or "rubbish heaps" of human waste at temporary camps of nomadic, hunter-gatherer tribes.
Each year when the tribe returned to a particular camp, a new crop of Cannabis would be growing in the rubbish heap left from the years prior. These waste piles provided perfect conditions for Cannabis to thrive and once the fiber, and later the seeds, began to be utilized then certain plants would be selected for a particular purpose.
Once the practical uses of this wild plant became known, and tribes began to fashion rope and bow strings etc. then these would eventually become one of the first commodities for trade among the the various tribes. This practice continued to spread and trade routes began to open up a new mode of survival among the peoples of this harsh central Asian steppes landscape. This would become the famous "silk road" where trade and commerce would begin to move all types of goods from central, middle east, south east and east Asia.
WHERE THERE'S CIVILIZATION THERE'S HEMP
Some of the earliest records come from China where strands of hemp fiber have been found in Chinese pottery dating back 6200 BC. Over time the Chinese discovered the various beneficial properties of Cannabis utilizing seeds for food; bast and hurd fiber for many practical uses like rope, weaving baskets and cloth, and eventually paper (Chinese invented paper 3000 years ago); roots, leaves and resin for medicine and for the psychoactive effects used by shaman.
China, Cannabis spread into the Middle East and Eastern Europe, eventually reaching South Asia between 3000 and 1000 BC via the Silk Road trade routes, cultural exchange, and warfare between Semitic people with invading tribes of Aryan and Scythians. Both the practical and psychoactive properties of Cannabis are well documented throughout India in Vedic poems and the Bhagavad-Gita. (Bennett 1995) where it became known as ganja (cognate to Ganges and the god Ganga) or bhang (marijuana tea mixed with milk).
Each society revered the Cannabis plant, gave it a unique name and it become part of the cultural fabric, both physically and spiritually; its seed, fiber and roots used for everything from food, clothing and clay pots to medicine and its intoxicating resin for spiritual introspection.
Colonization and the slave trade introduced Cannabis to the new world. Cannabis was well established in Africa and wherever African slaves were traded, so too was Cannabis. Introduced to Brazil by Angolan slaves around 1550 its narcotic effect became known in the sugar plantations as a way to relieve the stress of overwork.
The European demand for Hemp fiber, for making rope and sails, was voracious and the new world provided an alternative to Russian dominated supply. In 1553 Queen Elizabeth decreed that all landowners throughout the British Empire must grow hemp or be fined. In the early days of American history many farmers grew hemp including the founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who wrote the American Constitution on Hemp paper.
20TH CENTURY
Based on this colorful history, it is ironic that just as Hemp was about to launch the new era of the industrial revolution with Henry Fords Hemp Car 1938, hemp was once again demonized and sent underground. The very practical purposes of the plant that kickstarted civilization was also its demise as new ways to use petroleum to synthetically manufacture the multitude of products became the focus of the industrial revolution.As the new world economy became increasingly dependent on crude oil hydrocarbon technology, hemp, as a viable and biodegradable alternative, was squashed and removed from competition in the market which allowed a handful of corporations to control all new manufacturing of goods. Nylons, synthetic rope, wood based paper, and thousands of synthetic products of modern society have replaced natural biodegradable products made from metals and natural fiber.
The industrial revolution and subsequent technological revolution has accomplished many things to aid in the convenience of living in the modern world but unfortunately, at the same time, has completely destabilized the balance of the Earth's interrelated natural systems of sunlight, water, air, soil, and life. The synthetic petrochemical conveniences we have become so used to are environmentally toxic to the web-of-life created through billions of years of evolution. They destabilize our life support systems on Earth. Global warming causing climate change and ocean acidification, global plastic pollution and mass extinction are resulting in an urgent global crisis for which the governmental response has been disconcertingly slow.
HEMP & MODERN SOCIETY
Hemp can help to mitigate the transition to a cleaner living, earth-friendly, truly sustainable society. With hemp products being either carbon negative or neutral, the effect is doubled because hemp products can replace petroleum products which both emit carbon and pollute the environment as they are not biodegradable. Check out the section on (Carbon Foot Print) to see how effective hemp products are at reducing atmospheric carbon.
This is essentially why HempNetMarket was created. To offer an alternative to those who have made this important decision to reduce their footprint and step lighter on Earth.....our life-support-system. When you wear hemp, eat hemp, bath with hemp, heal with hemp, drive hemp cars, use hemp twine and rope, etc. you still do all your stuff, but with the assurance that you're not contributing to our global environmental crisis. You will have done your part for an environment in which future generations can also thrive.
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