At other times, cannabis is smoked in a water pipe referred to as a "chalice": styles include kutchies, chillums, and steamers. The pipe is passed in a counter- clockwise direction around the assembled circle of Rastas. There are various methods of transmission that might explain how cannabis smoking came to be part of Rastafari. By the 8th century, Arab traders had introduced cannabis to Central and Southern Africa.
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The practice of inhaling smoke was employed as a remedy for many different ailments. It was not limited to just cannabis, but various plants and medicinal concoctions recommended to promote general health were also used. Before modern times, smoking was done with pipes with stems of various lengths, or chillums. Today dhumrapana has been replaced almost entirely by cigarette smoking, but both dhupa and homa are still practiced.
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" John Lennon (The Beatles, discussing his plans for a comeback album in early 1980 while listening to the album Burnin'): :"In fact, if they really wanted the right sound, they should go to Jamaica! Go to the same studio that Bob Marley used! Get down with the Rasta men and smoke ganja in big spliffs or hash in chillums. Then they could get that deep-down, super funky, bass-box sound that comes from Trenchtown.
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It is distinguished from western-style large-bowl pipes designed for strong tobaccos that are burned hot and tasted but not inhaled. Instead, by properly distancing a lighter flame below the opening, inhalant users operate at vaporization temperatures, minimizing combustion waste and toxicity. Traditional national varieties of one-hitter pipes have included Native American calumet ("peace pipe"), kiseru (Japan), midwakh (Middle East), sebsi (Morocco) and some narrow chillums (Nepal, India, Jamaica). A one-hitter has been considered drug paraphernalia in certain regions.
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Charas with tobacco mixture is filled into the rolling paper to make a joint. However, The most traditional and popular ways of smoking Charas is in chillums. A clay pipe usually made by Indian and Italian artists due to Charas being extremely popular among Italian travellers since the 1960s to the Charas regions as well as significant amounts of the Charas production that is exported to Italy. The chillum is stuffed with the Charas and tobacco mixture and is usually smoked in a group.
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Fumigation and fire offerings have been performed with various substances, including clarified butter (ghee), fish offal, dried snakeskins, and various pastes molded around incense sticks and lit to spread the smoke over wide areas. The practice of inhaling smoke was employed as a remedy for many different ailments was not limited to just cannabis, but also various plants and medicinal concoctions recommended to promote general health. Before modern times, smoking was done with pipes with stems of various lengths, or chillums. Today dhumrapana has been replaced almost entirely by cigarette smoking, but both dhupa and homa are still practiced.
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Many smoke it in clay pipes called chillums, using a cotton cloth to cover the smoking end of the chillum and inserting a tightly packed pebble-sized cone of clay as filter under the chunk of charas. Before lighting the chillum they will chant the many names of Shiva in veneration. It is regaining the popularity it once enjoyed with the younger generations of India regarding it as a recreational drug of choice. It is freely available in several places around India especially where there is a strong affluence of tourists (Goa, Delhi, Rishikesh, Varanasi, etc.).
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Alternatively, the migration of many thousands of Hindus and Muslims from British India to the Caribbean in the 20th century may have brought this culture to Jamaica. Many academics point to Indo-Caribbean origins for the ganja sacrament resulting from the importation of Indian migrant workers in a post-abolition Jamaican landscape. "Large scale use of ganja in Jamaica ... dated from the importation of indentured Indians...."(Campbell 110). Dreadlocked mystics Jata, often ascetic known as sadhus or Sufi Qalandars and Derwishes, have smoked cannabis from both chillums and coconut shell hookahs in South Asia since the ancient times.
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30 The smoking of tobacco, as well as various hallucinogenic drugs, was used to achieve trances and to come into contact with the spirit world. Substances such as cannabis, clarified butter (ghee), fish offal, dried snake skins and various pastes molded around incense sticks dates back at least 2000 years. Fumigation (dhupa) and fire offerings (homa) are prescribed in the Ayurveda for medical purposes, and have been practiced for at least 3,000 years while smoking, dhumrapana (literally "drinking smoke"), has been practiced for at least 2,000 years. Before modern times these substances have been consumed through pipes, with stems of various lengths or chillums.
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