The Swiss naturalist Johann Büttikofer reported that "Congo-negroes" in Liberia nearly all smoked hemp, a habit brought with them from their old home.[1][2] They farmed diamba and smoked it in calabash-based water pipes of the kind made across Atlantic Central Africa.[1] Harry Johnston still found hemp growing and smoking in Liberia in 1906 only among Americo-Liberians of Congo origin, and by the 1920s diamba had a coastal distribution from Sierra Leone to the Liberian grasslands.[1] The United States Navy resettled several hundred "Congoes" near Monrovia in the 1820s and 1830s, though those particular captives — enslaved for two years in Georgia after capture near Cuba — are unlikely to have carried the plant.[1]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for Liberia here.
References
- The African Roots of MarijuanaChris S. Duvall · Duke University Press · 2019 · ch. 7, printed pp. 145–147 with notes 166–172 (pp. 296–297); Büttikofer on Congo-negro hemp smoking and calabash pipes, Johnston 1906, 1920s coastal distribution, Congo-town recaptives · ISBN 9781478004530
- Reisebilder aus LiberiaJohann Büttikofer · Brill · 1890 · vol. 2, pp. 276–277 (cited via Duvall 2019)
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.