Cannabis
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| 430 B.C. |
| Herodotus reports on ritual, cleansing, and recreational use of Cannabis by the Scythians. |
| 73. [...] After burying their dead, Scythians purify themselves. First they anoint and rise their hair, then, for their bodies, they lean three poles against another, cover the poles with felted woolen blankets, making sure that they fit together as tightly as possible, and then put red-hot stones from the fire on to a dish which has been placed in the middle of the pole-and-blanket structure.
74. Now there is a plant growing in their country called cannabis, which closely resembles flax, except that cannabis is thicker-stemmed and taller. In Scythia, in fact, it is far taller. It grows wild, but is also cultivated, and the Thracians use it, as well as flax, for making clothes. These clothes are so similar to ones made out of flax that it would take a real expert to tell the difference between the two materials. Anyone unfamiliar with cannabis would suppose that the clothes were linen. 75. The Scythians, as I said, take cannabis seeds, crawl in under the felt blankets, and throw the seeds on to the glowing stones. The seeds then emit dense smoke and fumes, much more than any vapour-bath in Greece. The Scythians shriek with delight at the fumes. This is their equivalent of a bath, since they never wash their bodies with water. |
| References The Histories. Herodotus of Halicarnassus. 430 B.C. Translated by G. Rawlinson. |
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