Maybe they smoked it to get high. Just a farfetched suggestion.
Posted on 06/28/2020 12:34:25 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
People in what is now Washington State were smoking Rhus glabra, a plant commonly known as smooth sumac, more than 1,400 years ago.
The discovery, made by a team of Washington State University researchers, marks the first-time scientists have identified residue from a non-tobacco plant in an archeological pipe.
Unearthed in central Washington, the Native American pipe also contained residue from N. quadrivalvis, a species of tobacco not currently grown in the region but that is thought to have been widely cultivated in the past. Until now, the use of specific smoking plant mixtures by ancient people in the American Northwest had only been speculated about.
"Smoking often played a religious or ceremonial role for Native American tribes and our research shows these specific plants were important to these communities in the past," said Korey Brownstein, a former WSU Ph.D. student now at the University of Chicago and lead author of a study on the research in the journal Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences. "We think the Rhus glabra may have been mixed with tobacco for its medicinal qualities and to improve the flavor of smoke."
The discovery was made possible by a new metabolomics-based analysis method that can detect thousands of plant compounds or metabolites in residue collected from pipes, bowls and other archeological artifacts. The compounds can then be used to identify which plants were smoked or consumed.
"Not only does it tell you, yes, you found the plant you’re interested in, but it also can tell you what else was being smoked," said David Gang, a professor in WSU’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and a co-author of the study. "It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that this technology represents a new frontier in archaeo-chemistry."
(Excerpt) Read more at miragenews.com ...
Maybe they smoked it to get high. Just a farfetched suggestion.
The Ohio Mound Builders smoked a type of local marijuana. Supposedly it very potent.
My Brothers used to smoke rabbit tobacco.
I have no idea why.
Maybe they used the Rhus glabra to stretch their tobacco supply which probably was a trade item in Washington state and not grown there.
That’s why they’re now called “ancient people”. Smoking sumac is idiotic.
”Wait...what...?”
I rodent know either.
Not much has changed since the sixties in regards to those parks.
Smooth suman wont make you high but you can make a sort of lemonadelike drink from the berries.
In the east it is widely known that indians cut their tobacco with several kinds of sumac, bearberry, and other things like red osier dogwood... Kinnikinek.
In college I was told that one of the caves in Europe contained evidence of cannabis use circa 30,000 BC.
Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it!
That was no plant, that was Keith Richards’ grandfather
Around these parts it’s called “life everlasting.”
"Glad to be here, glad to be anywhere." -- Keith Richards
That would be quite a trick since cannabis species are native to the old world....central Asia... And was introduced to North America by colonists, despite assorted hippie sites claiming prehistoric Indians used it.... The confusion may be due to totally unrelated plants like dogbane being called ‘hemp’ because they were as good for making cordage as true hemp.
This is probably the source of the confusion —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocynum_cannabinum
They did have intoxicating and hallucinogenic plants native to North America to use ...one is plain old Jimson weed. Before it showed up in the Mississippian [more recent than the Hopewell] archaeological record their art was tight and refined... After it turned up it became became disjointed and fixated on death symbols. I don’t think it was smoked, but might be wrong. I think it was taken orally. The Mississippians [the Natchez anyway] also used a kind of pill made of strong tobacco to render victims compliant before strangling them to accompany dead leaders into the afterlife.
Making sumac 'lemonade' used to be in the Boy Scout manual, back when I was a BS. :^)
Dogbane is mildly hallucinogenic but it can act on the heart and was used to treat many conditions and taken different ways..
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