Southern Africa became a secondary cradle for cannabis evolution after its introduction from foreign shores. Cannabis is not native to Africa; it was brought by people, yet Africa’s vast landscapes and diverse cultures quickly made it their own. In the context of cannabis history, “Southern Africa” generally refers to the regions south of the equator, including countries like South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini (Swaziland), Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia. The plant likely arrived in waves. The earliest documented introduction to sub-Saharan Africa was via the Indian Ocean trade: Arab and Indian merchants carried cannabis to East Africa, perhaps around the 10th century CE or earlier. From the Swahili coast (modern Tanzania, Mozambique), cannabis use spread inland with Bantu-speaking peoples. By the 15th–16th centuries, Portuguese records noted cannabis being grown by the native populations of the eastern and southern African coast. Another route was via Central Africa: cannabis might have moved south from the Ethiopia/Sudan region or even across the Congo basin by indigenous diffusion. By the time European explorers penetrated Southern Africa in the 17th century, they found widespread cannabis use among local groups. In South Africa, the Khoisan and Bantu peoples were smoking or ingesting cannabis (known as dagga) well before Dutch colonists arrived in 1652.
Human cultivation in Southern Africa turned cannabis into distinct landraces adapted to the local climate zones. Unlike the short-season mountains of Central Asia, Southern Africa offered a temperate to subtropical climate with relatively long growing seasons. The landraces that developed here are typically sativa-type: tall (often 8–12 feet high), with slender leaflets and long, spear-shaped buds. They often have lower yields of resin per bud than an Afghan plant, but make up for it in the sheer size of the plant and a clear, energetic psychoactivity. Examples include the classic Durban Poison, a sativa landrace from the Durban area of South Africa’s east coast. Durban Poison (named by Western breeders after the city of Durban) is one of the few African landrace cultivars to gain worldwide fame. It is cherished for its sweet, spicy aroma (with notes of anise or fennel) and upbeat cerebral high. Durban Poison’s genetics are so stable that pure versions of it are still circulated; it’s essentially an heirloom cultivar selected from the broader Zulu or South African dagga landrace.
Other Southern African landraces have also made their mark. In the tiny kingdom of Lesotho (high in the Drakensberg mountains), cannabis became a key crop; landraces from Lesotho are hardy and adapted to high elevation. Eswatini’s Swazi Gold is another renowned strain, known for its resinous golden colas and a happy, stimulating effect. In Malawi (slightly further north but often included in the Southern African region), farmers cultivated a famous strain often called Malawi Gold. Malawi Gold is a pure sativa that produces slender, long buds with a golden-green color and an intense, long-lasting psychoactive effect. It’s so integral to Malawian rural culture that locals have traditionally cured the cannabis in bundles called cobs (wrapping the buds in corn husks to ferment slightly). This practice yields a smooth-smoking product celebrated by enthusiasts worldwide.
These Southern African strains arose under unique human influences, unlike Asia, where religious or medicinal uses dominated; in Southern Africa, cannabis was often used socially (for relaxation, as an inebriant similar to alcohol) and spiritually by certain tribes. There was less formal selection for specific traits; rather, the plant grew semi-wild in many areas and was tended casually. This allowed considerable genetic diversity to persist. For example, South African dagga fields would produce plants of varying quality; only later did some growers start isolating the best for replanting. When Western breeders got hold of these genetics in the late 20th century, they often had to do some stabilizing. The results are cultivar versions like Durban Poison (a relatively consistent version of the South African landrace) or RooiBaard (“Red Beard”), an old local term for a reddish-colored dagga that gained legendary status.
In terms of co-evolution, Southern African cannabis illustrates adaptation to short-day photoperiod and intense sun. These landraces typically begin flowering as soon as day length shrinks (near the spring equinox) and can handle heat and periodic drought. Some strains from this region can have semi-auto-flowering traits, a hint of possible ancient hybridization with feral cannabis, or simply adaptation. Humans in Southern Africa did not breed cannabis in an organized way, but their consistent use of it created a niche where only plants meeting local preferences (e.g., good potency, agreeable flavor) would be propagated. This subtle selection, plus natural pressures, yielded the famous African sativas that today contribute genes to many hybrids (for example, Power Plant from Dutch Passion seed bank was bred directly from South African landrace seeds).
Finally, Southern Africa played a crucial role in cannabis’s return journey to the Americas. In the 16th–19th centuries, Portuguese traders and enslaved Africans carried Southern African cannabis to Brazil and the Caribbean. For instance, Angolan and Mozambican slaves in Brazil grew the African landraces, which then hybridized with whatever other cannabis was around (including possibly Indian strains brought by workers or European hemp). Thus, African landrace genetics are behind several New World strains. The famous “Black Colombian” or “Colombian Punto Rojo” (Red Point) sativas of the 1970s are thought to have ancestry tracing back to African introductions during the slave trade era. In a way, cannabis completed a loop: humans brought it from Asia to Africa, Africans took it to the Americas, and centuries later, breeders in North America and Europe “rediscovered” these African-New World strains and mixed them with Asian strains again. Throughout all this, the Southern African landraces have remained a vital link—resilient, tall, and full of sunshine-fueled energy.
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