Research:1996-11-01/Journal article/from-rituals-of-rapture-to-dependence-the-political-economy-of-khoikhoi-narcotic-consumption-c-1487-1870

1 Nov 1996 Journal article

South Africa

From Rituals of Rapture to Dependence: The Political Economy of Khoikhoi Narcotic Consumption, c.1487–1870

David Gordon

South African Historical Journal· 1996

Argues that the intoxicant the seventeenth-century eastern Khoikhoi cultivated and traded, and van Riebeeck's 1658 dacha, was probably canna (a fermented Karoo root) rather than cannabis, and that dagga came to denote cannabis in Cape trade only by the eighteenth century. Use for the canna-versus-cannabis distinction, not for a precolonial cannabis-trade claim.

Source DOI

1996-11-01 2026-07-03 From Rituals of Rapture to Dependence: The Political Economy of Khoikhoi Narcotic Consumption, c.1487–1870 Journal article David Gordon South African Historical Journal 1996 10.1080/02582479608671247 https://doi.org/10.1080/02582479608671247 Argues that the intoxicant the seventeenth-century eastern Khoikhoi cultivated and traded, and van Riebeeck's 1658 dacha, was probably canna (a fermented Karoo root) rather than cannabis, and that dagga came to denote cannabis in Cape trade only by the eighteenth century. Use for the canna-versus-cannabis distinction, not for a precolonial cannabis-trade claim. South Africa