Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories (20 page)

1808. From:
Mindscapes: An Anthology of Drug Writings
, ed.

Antonio Melechi, 1998

Alexander Pope

Z
AME
Y
E
M
EBEGE
(the last of the creator gods) gave us
eboka
. He saw the misery in which blackman was living. He thought how to help him. One day he looked down and saw a blackman, the Pygmy Bitumu, high in an Atanga tree, gathering its fruit. He made him fall. He died and Zame brought his spirit to him. Zame cut off the little fingers and the little toes of the cadaver of the Pygmy and planted them in various parts of the forest. They grew into the
eboka
bush.

T
HE VISION (
NDEM EBOKA
) OF
N
DONG
A
SSEKO
(
A
GE
22;
CLAN
E
SSABAM
;
UNMARRIED
)

When I ate
eboka
, I found myself taken by it up a long road in a deep forest until I came to a barrier of black iron. At that barrier, unable to pass, I saw a crowd of black persons also unable to pass. In the distance beyond the barrier it was very bright. I could see many colors in the air but the crowd of black people could not pass. Suddenly my father descended from above in the form of a bird. He gave me then my
eboka
name, Onwan Misengue, and enabled me to fly up after him over the barrier of iron. As we proceeded the bird, who was my father, changed from black to white – first his tail feathers, then all his plumage. We came then to a river the color of blood in the midst of which was a great snake of three colors – blue, black, and red. It closed its gaping mouth so that we were able to pass over it. On the other side there was a crowd of people all in white. We passed through them and they shouted at us words of recognition until we arrived at another river – all white. This we crossed by means of a giant chain of gold. On the other side there were no trees but only a grassy upland. On the top of the hill was a round house made entirely of glass and built upon one post only. Within I saw a man, the hair on his head piled up in the form of a Bishop’s hat. He had a star on his breast but on coming closer I saw that it was his heart in his chest beating. We moved around him and on the back of his neck there was a red cross tattooed. He had a long beard. Just then I looked up and saw a woman in the moon – a bayonet was piercing her heart from which a bright white fire was pouring forth. Then I felt a pain on my shoulder. My father told me to return to earth. I had gone far enough. If I went further I would not return.

T
HE VISION OF
E
MAN
E
LA
(
A
GE
30;
CLAN
E
SSAMENYANG
;
MARRIED WITH ONE WIFE
)

When I ate
eboka
very quickly my grandfather came to me. First he had black skin. Then he returned and he had white skin. It was he that gave me my
eboka
name. My grandmother then appeared in the same way. Because my grandfather was dead before I was born he asked me if I knew how I recognized him. It was through
eboka
. He then seized me by the hand and we found ourselves embarked on a grand route. I didn’t have the sense of walking but just of floating along. We came to a table in that road. There we sat and my grandfather asked me all the reasons I had eaten
eboka
. He gave me others. Then my grandfather disappeared and suddenly a white spirit appeared before me. He grasped me by the arm and we floated along. Then we came to a crossroads. The road on which we were traveling was red. The other two routes were black and white. We passed over. Finally we arrived at a large house on a hill. It was built off one post. Within I found the wife of my mother’s father. She gave me my
eboka
name a second time and also gave me the talent to play the
ngomi
harp. We passed on and finally arrived after passing over more crossroads at a great desert.

Then I saw descend from the sky – from the moon – a giant circle which came down and encircled the earth, as a rainbow of three colors – blue, red, and white. I began playing the
ngombi
under the rainbow and I heard the applause of men. I returned. All the
banzie
thought I had gone too far and was dead.

Since then I have seen nothing in
eboka
. But each time I take it I hear the spirits who give the power to play the
ngombi
. I play what I hear from them. Only if I come into the chapel in a bad heart does
eboka
fail me.

1982. From:
White Rabbit: A Psychedelic Reader
,

eds, John Miller and Randall Koral, 1995

Revelations

F
EW TRADITIONS IN
South-East Asia have the antiquity and universal acceptance of betel-chewing. The custom is over 2,000 years old and has survived from ancient times into the twentieth century. Its use cuts across class, sex, or age. Its devotees include farmers, priests and kings; men, women, and children. The homeliness of the name belies its importance.

Three ingredients – an areca nut, a leaf of the betel pepper, and lime – are essential for betel-chewing; others may be added depending on availability and preference. The leaf is first daubed with lime paste and topped with thin slices of the nut, then it is folded or rolled into a bite-size quid. The interaction of the ingredients during chewing produces a red-coloured saliva. Most of the betel juice is spat out. The tell-tale residue looks like splotches of dried blood. Indeed, the resemblance is so close that some early European visitors thought many Asians had tuberculosis. The splotches of betel spittle are spaced consistently enough for use as measurements of time and distance in rural areas. A short time is ‘about a betel chew’ and the distance between two villages, for example, may be ‘about three chews’.

Besides being chewed, the betel quid and the individual ingredients are widely used for medicinal, magical and symbolical purposes. It is administered as a curative for a plethora of ills, including indigestion and worms. It is believed to facilitate contact with supernatural forces and is often used to exorcise spirits, particularly those associated with illness. In its symbolical role, it is present at nearly all religious ceremonies and festivals of the lunar calendar. Betel fosters relationships and thus serves as an avenue of communication between relatives, lovers, friends and strangers. It figures in male-female alliances and its potency in this area is especially telling. Because of its power in bonding relationships, betel is used symbolically to solidify acts of justice such as oaths of allegiance and the settlement of lawsuits. Betel is a surrogate for money in payment to midwives and surgeons for services rendered.

A key to the unconditional patronage of betel is its use on four levels – as a food and medicine, and for magical and symbolical purposes. As such, this single tradition is an integral part of the art, ceremonies and social intercourse of daily life.

Why do people chew betel? The multi-purpose benefits are described explicitly in Indian literature as early as the sixth century. ‘Betel stimulates passion, brings out the physical charm, conduces to good luck, lends aroma to the mouth, strengthens the body and dispels diseases arising from the phlegm. It also bestows many other benefits.’ According to a sixth-century Indian text, betel is one of the nine enjoyments of life – along with unguents, incense, women, garments, music, beds, food and flowers named in a Sanskrit verse of the twelfth century.

The main reason for chewing betel seems to lie in the social affability produced by sharing a quid with friends. This enjoyment can be seen on the faces of a group of elderly men squatting around a betel box, or heard in the laughter of women relaxing in a rice field with a betel basket. Offering a quid to someone is a mark of hospitality.

From:
Artificial Paradises: A Drugs Reader
, ed. Mike Jay, 1999

The coffee bean has long been a symbol of power in Harrar. The caste of growers, the Harash, not only bore the city’s name but were forbidden to go beyond its walls lest the art of cultivation be lost. The head of the emir’s bodyguard was allowed a small private garden as a sign of his rank. And of course, natives worshiped their coffeepots, as in the prayer above, which translates:

I think we all pray to the first cup of the day. It’s a silent prayer, sung while the mind is still foggy and blue. ‘O Magic Cup,’ it might go, ‘carry me above the traffic jam. Keep me civil in the subway. And forgive my employer, as you forgive me. Amen.’

But the prayer from the Garri/Oromo tribe is more serious, part of a ritual called
bun-qalle
that celebrates sex and death, and in which the coffee bean replaces the fatted ox in a sacrifice to the gods. Among the Garri the husking of the coffee fruit symbolizes the slaughter, with the priests biting the heads off the sacrificial creatures. After this, the beans are cooked in butter and chewed by the elders. Their spiritual power thus enhanced, they pronounce a blessing on the proceedings and smear the holy coffee-scented butter on the participants’ foreheads. The beans are then mixed with sweet milk, and everybody drinks the liquid while reciting the prayer.

If the whole affair seems vaguely familiar, it should. Who has gone to a business meeting where coffee is not offered? Its use as an intellectual lubricant, along with its ability to ‘swell our wealth,’ per the Garri prayer, has made having a pot ready for consumption an international business norm. Looked at this way, a modern business office is nothing more than a ‘tribe’ camped out about its own sacred pot, and the
bun-qalle
is nothing less than man’s first coffee klatch, archetype of the world’s most common social ritual.

Two things about the
bun-qalle
mark it as probably the earliest use of coffee as a mind-altering or magical drug. The first is that the beans are fried and then eaten, a practice clearly derived from the coffee balls chewed by Oromo warriors near Kefa. The Garri, who live a few hundred miles south of Harrar, are related to the Oromo and share their language. The second part of the ceremony, where the roasted beans are added to milk and imbibed, indicates it predates Islam (
AD
600) because Islamic alchemists believed that mixing coffee and milk caused leprosy (a belief that lies at the root of the disdain many Europeans have for coffee with milk).

Further indication of the ceremony’s extreme antiquity is the fact that the Garri associate
bun-qalle
with the sky god Waaq. His name may sound uncouth to us, but the worship of this sky god is thought to be among the world’s first religions. Whether the eating of coffee beans was performed in the original Waaq ceremonies is beyond knowing. One can say, I think, that since the Garri were doubtless among the first to taste our favorite bean, and since primitive people who discover psychoactive drugs tend to worship them (a penchant today denigrated as mere substance abuse), it seems likely that consuming the beans was added to the Waaq ceremonies at a relatively early date.

In the Oromo culture of western Ethiopia, the coffee bean’s resemblance to a woman’s sexual organs has given birth to another
bun-qalle
ceremony with such heavy sexual significance that it is preceded by a night of abstinence, according to the work of anthropologist Lambert Bartel. Oromo elder Gammachu Magarsa told Bartel that ‘we compare this biting open of the coffee fruits with the first sexual intercourse on the wedding day, when the man has to force the girl to open her thighs in order to get access to her vagina.’

After the beans are husked, they are stirred in the butter with a stick called
dannaba
, the word for penis. Some people replace the stick with bundles of living grass because a dead piece of wood cannot ‘impart life’ or impregnate the beans. As the beans are stirred, another prayer is recited until finally the coffee fruits burst open from the heat, making the sound
tass!
This bursting of the fruit is likened to both childbirth and the last cry of the dying man. The person stirring the beans now recites: ‘Ashama, my coffee, burst open to bring peace there you opened your mouth please wish me peace keep far from me all evil tongues.’