La mona
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| Kind of name | Local name |
|---|---|
| Also called | Mona amarilla |
| Language | Spanish |
| Meaning | blonde |
| Refers to | Pale marijuana of the Caribbean coast and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; in Medellín, marijuana in general |
| Country | Colombia |
|---|---|
| Places | Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta |
| First recorded | 1976[1]: 47 |
La mona, or mona, is a Colombian name for marijuana. Time glossed it in 1979 as "Mona (blond)".[2] On the Caribbean coast during the bonanza marimbera it was another name for the pale export marijuana sold as Santa Marta Gold;[3]: 304 other writers applied it to a separate type grown higher in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.[2] A 1976 agronomy thesis from Santa Marta gives negra and mona as the popular names of two varieties.[1]: 47 In Medellín it was a period word for marijuana in general.[4]
The Santa Marta gold type
Carlos Antonio Herrera Fernández, writing in the magazine Guajira, called "Santa Marta gold" the traditional type, "la que le ha dado fama a Colombia como país productor de marihuana", and wrote that it was "la yerba llamada comúnmente 'la mona' o 'amarilla'".[3]: 304 The anthropologist Anthony Henman described la mona o gold as "una hierba estimulante, ligeramente acanelada o dorada, que se da, principalmente, en la Costa Atlántica", and listed la mona (Santa Marta gold) as one of four trade types.[5]: 275–276 Henman suggested that the colour came from cutting a strip of bark round the stem two or three weeks before the harvest, and wrote that this method was unknown in Cauca, "lo cual explica la ausencia de hierba mona en esta parte de Colombia".[5]: 277
Ceballos's 1976 thesis at the Universidad Tecnológica del Magdalena tested seed of Negra and Mona for storage moulds. The mould Aspergillus flavus showed most on Mona, as yellow hairs, and Ceballos concluded that the variety "denominada comúnmente la mona" was the more susceptible to fungal attack.[1]: 47, 51
A highland type
Time reported in January 1979 that crop tasters still rated Santa Marta Gold "the most famous of the Colombian line", but that "the Arhuaco Indians in the higher altitudes are growing an even more potent variety of pot: Mona (blond) plants so pale that they look bleached".[2] A foreign press report reprinted by José Cervantes Angulo said that some peasants grew a blonde variety, la mona, for which demand was high and which sold dearer.[3]: 172–173 Settlers interviewed by Luis Alejandro Martínez González in the Don Diego basin of the Sierra in 2004–05 did not link the Indigenous people of the Sierra with marijuana growing.[6]: 39
Semana wrote in 1982 that US buyers had been drawn by the quality of "nuestra yerba (en sus dos variedades: la 'Mona' y la 'Red Point')".[7] Looking back at the 1970s, a Medellín grower known as Gato, of the Marimberos seed bank, told Cáñamo that "En esa época nacen las leyendas de la Punto Rojo, la Mangobiche y la Colombian Golden o la Mona".[8]
In Medellín
The Medellín columnist Reinaldo Spitaletta wrote in 2022 that "La 'mona', otra designación de época, les daba cierto cartel a poetas", among them Barba Jacob. Spitaletta also wrote that Carolo, promoter of the Ancón festival of 1971, had been to the Netherlands "como catador de 'la mona'".[4]
Colour names
| Name | Earliest dated source | What the name is applied to |
|---|---|---|
| mona, amarilla | 1976 | a variety called by its popular name, beside negra, in a Santa Marta agronomy thesis[1]: 47; the Santa Marta gold type (Henman; Herrera Fernández)[5]: 275[3]: 304; a paler and stronger type grown higher in the Sierra (Time, "Mona (blond)")[2]; one of "dos variedades" of Colombian marijuana (Semana)[7] |
| punto rojo, Red Point | 1978 | a Cauca type (Henman)[5]: 276; a stronger, resinous type on the Caribbean coast (Herrera Fernández)[3]: 304 |
| la roja de Santa Marta, Santa Marta red | 1978 | one of Henman's four trade types, set beside Panama red[5]: 276 |
| mango viche, mango biche | 1978 | "Llanos green y Cauca green" (Henman)[5]: 276; an export grade, glossed "green mango" (Britto)[9]: ch. 3 |
| la morada | 1973 | a female plant near Aracataca, on the herbarium sheet HUA 534[10] |
| la blanca | 1973 | another female plant gathered the same day, on the sheet HUA 537[11] |
| negra | 1976 | a variety in the 1976 thesis[1]: 47; a highland type at Silvia, Cauca, in 1974 (Henman)[5]: 280; an export grade, glossed "black" (Britto)[9]: ch. 3 |
| Mona Cielo Azul, Blue Sky Blond | 1979 | a pale plant from the Cielo Azul heights, said to be a hybrid made with seed from Thailand (Time)[2] |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Ceballos C., Aníbal S. (1976). Algunos aspectos del cultivo de la marihuana (Cannabis sativa L.) (Tesis de grado (Ingeniero Agrónomo)). Santa Marta: Universidad Tecnológica del Magdalena. hdl:20.500.14923/2103.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 "The Colombian Connection". Time. 29 January 1979. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Cervantes Angulo, José (1980). La noche de las luciérnagas (in español). Bogotá: Plaza & Janés.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Spitaletta, Reinaldo (18 October 2022). "Soy un perdido, soy un marihuano…". El Espectador (in español). Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Henman, Anthony (2019) [1978]. Mama coca (in español). Translated by Gabriel Iriarte; preface by Wade Davis (8th ed.). Popayán: Editorial Universidad del Cauca. ISBN 978-958-732-345-0.
- ↑ Martínez González, Luis Alejandro (2011). Historia de un conflicto territorial: Estado, para estados, colonos e indígenas en la cuenca del Río Don Diego, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia (Trabajo de grado (Antropología)) (in español). Santa Marta: Universidad del Magdalena. hdl:20.500.14923/184.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Bonanza marimbera, adios!". Semana (in español). 1 November 1982. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ Moreno, Fidel. "Las aventuras de Gato y su misión marimbera". Cáñamo (in español). Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Britto, Lina (2020). Marijuana Boom: The Rise and Fall of Colombia's First Drug Paradise. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-32547-0.
- ↑ "Occurrence 931007696: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 931007851: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 2 November 2026.