Native of Kashmir smoking primitive earth pipe, from Illustrated Archaeologist september 1894
Earth Pipe
Utilizing a ancient technique our ancestors had no need for pipes to smoke their cannabis, instead they smoked the herb straight from the Earth!
A member of the Basoetostam in South Africa is smoking dagga (local language for cannabis) South Africa 1930
Remnants of this ancient practice can be found in Southern Africa where the smoking technique was widespread among native tribes. Detailed in a October 15, 1921 article from the Le Meschacébé, a Louisiana newspaper, the author witnesses the construction and use of a earth pipe to smoke cannabis, known locally as dagga, by natives in South Africa.
“He scoops a hole out of the hard ground three to four inches deep by three inches wide. A foot or so away from this he scoops another hole, and he then bores a small channel under ground from one to the other. There is thus a free air passage connecting the two little excavations.
He places some dried dagga leaves in the first hole, lights them and covers them over with moist clay. He pierces this clay with a sharpened piece of wood to allow a draught to go through.
Into the other hole he inserts a small hollow reed – this is the pipe stem – squeezes moist clay round it, and on his knees begins his smoke.”
‘Bechuana native smoking dakka (cannabis)’ from a ground pipe. Illustration from ‘Explorations in South-West Africa…’ by Thomas Baines 1864
The construction of these earth pipes varied slightly between many of the tribes in South Africa. In 1910 Dr. Moszoik witnessed one addition to the pipe’s design noting that after the “hemp is placed in the “bowl” and kindled. A little water is poured into the duct and the native lies flat or kneels down and inhales the smoke through the water” hinting at the possible origins of all modern water pipes.*1
The Bechuana natives of the Southern Kalahari, also smoke from earth pipes constructed in a similar way to other South African tribes, but according to Dr. L. Schultze in the book “Aus Namaland und Kalahari” published in 1907, the Bechuana would use their wooden spears to form the connecting channel packing wet earth around the weapon until dry enough to remove, this would leave a larger passage between the holes for the smoke to travel producing a huge hit for the smoker.
illustration by R. Caton Woodville of a Kaffirs improvised ground-pipe. from Illustrated London News, September 30, 1911
Use of the Earth pipe is not isolated to the Africa continent and can be found in ancient cultures across Turkestan and into Central Asia. In Turkestan, ancient peoples smoked excavated ground pipes known locally as “yer-chilin” which literally translates to ‘place chillum’ and thought to refer directly to the earth pipe. In 1894 an archeologist traveling in India named Mr. Lovett witnesses the natives of Kashmir building a earth pipe of identical design to the South African natives. He remarks that these are “pipes of which the whole world may be said to form a part.”*2
In this region of India, the earth pipe also was modified when multiple people wished to smoke. Mimicking a modern day hookah, Lovett explains the ancient Kashmir earthen party pipe “should there be a number of bearers together, and should they be especially sociable, they construct a large common pipe in the same manner, but in the form of a crater and cone, around which they all sit, each with a hollow reed inserted through the side of the ‘crater'”
With the ease of concealment, smoking cannabis from these excavated pipes has been particularly witnessed in areas where law enforcement against the plant required concealment for the user.
Zulu tribesmen smoking Dagga (cannabis) using “The Earth Pipe”, postcard from South Africa
Incredibly, the earth pipe can also be found in North America used by native tribes in a ancient smoking ceremony. Ken Cohen in his book ‘Honoring the medicine: The Essential Guide to Native American Healing’ tells of the rare ‘Earth Pipe Ceremony’ in which “smokers lie on their bellies and place their stems into a common pit filled with hot coals and tobacco. The earth is the pipe bowl”.
Illustration of a underground pipe used by the Turkomans of the Island of Cheleken, eastern Caspian Sea from the book ‘Reise durch Russland….’ by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin 1784
The widespread use of the earth pipe in ancient times by so many cultures around the world could suggest a much more ancient past amongst humanity. According to Henry Belfour in his paper ‘Earth smoking pipes from South Africa and Central Asia’ published in 1922, “The resemblances are sufficiently striking and numerous to suggest that they must be explained by the assumption of a culture-link between the two widely-separated areas”.
Belfour further contends that humanity’s earliest mud and clay pipes ever found may have had “an origin traceable to the built-up earth-pipes” suggesting the basic design for all modern smoking pipes could have descended from this simple ancient technique originally used to smoke cannabis.
Sikh soldier smoking ground pipe, illustration by R. Caton Woodville (the design of this earth pipe is strikingly similar to early mud and clay portable pipes found throughout Africa and Asia)
Are you now curious what it’s like smoking your cannabis straight from the Earth? Well according to some first hand stoner accounts from India in 1834, smoking from the earth pipe is like taking ‘a draught cool as the breath of Paradise.’*3
Whose got the shovel?
2 men smoke from a earth pipe, 1970’s
*1 ‘Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie volume XIX’ in 1910
*2 ‘Illustrated Archceologist’ in September 1894
*3 Lieut. A. Conolly from his book “Journey to the North of India,” published in 1834