Sensi was found pon Solomon grave, to burn sensimilla mi could not be 'fraid
May 2, 2010 6:05 PM   Subscribe

I'm a big fan of reggae and Jamaican music (to say the least), and have heard many references in songs to marijuana being found growing on King Solomon's grave in reggae songs and writings by and about Rastas. Where does this legend come from? How old is it, does it predate Rastafarianism or not? Is there an actual location where Solomon's grave is supposed to have been found?

One example is the Beenie Man quote in the title, but there are plentiful references to this legend in reggae. Usually just declaring that it was found on Solomon's grave and that's it.
posted by DecemberBoy to Media & Arts (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Response by poster: Also, I already know about the Biblical quotes from Genesis and Exodus that they use to justify religious use of cannabis - looking specifically for info on this legend about King Solomon, thanks, unless the legend comes from a Biblical source (I don't think it does).
posted by DecemberBoy at 6:07 PM on May 2, 2010


Taking a cursory few searches through Google Books for anything about King Solomon's grave I only came across reference to this (pot growing there) as a Rastafarian tradition and I didn't find any mention of it earlier than the late 60's.
posted by XMLicious at 6:54 PM on May 2, 2010


Searching for the terms "King Solomon" and "marijuana" on Google led to many, many bits of relevant information.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 7:50 PM on May 2, 2010


Response by poster: I tried that, and mostly found other people asking the same question as me and not getting satisfactory answers. So it's just something the Rastas made up out of whole cloth then?
posted by DecemberBoy at 7:56 PM on May 2, 2010


(In my basic understanding of Rastafarianism)... It's important to remember that Rasta is a relatively recent, very intentionally created religion. The connections to the Lost Tribe of Israel and the lineage of King Solomon were sort of (if not completely) lifted from the Bible to suit their need for a connection to the past. You might be overthinking this.
posted by gnutron at 8:26 PM on May 2, 2010


The records of King Solomon date from after the Babylonian Exile 586 B.C.E. There really isn't anything like what you could consider history. There is some great information in Archaeology of the land of the Bible 10 000 - 586 B.C.E. by Amihai Mazar. Among the most interesting tidbits is they have found written letters there at Jericho and other sites which are as old as anything written anywhere. Solomon (presuming there was one real guy whose name was Solomon) did not write Hebrew; there was a funky pre-Hebrew pre-Aramaic script. They have found an amazing list of stuff: grapes, olives, garlic, chickpeas, onions, the full accoutrement of the high civilization weaponry. It is certainly feasible that there was a wealthy king named Solomon who built a big temple and is factual basis for the scripture, myths, and legends.

We may never know. There is nothing in Mazar's book about sensi. Maybe the Rastas got some better inside information!
posted by bukvich at 4:55 AM on May 3, 2010


Yeah - since nobody has anything more than assumption and/or "revealed truth" to determine where King Solomon's grave is (or David's, or Saul's, or King Arthur's... evidence of Solomon's gigantic empire is also, shall we say, elusive), making pronouncements about what's growing on it seems a little premature.

Hemp is a hardy weed, though; you need a serious devotion to prohibitionism to root the stuff out. And it's been grown in the Middle East pretty much forever. So statistically speaking, and especially if you don't draw a very clear line between smokable and good-only-for-fibre hemp, there's a decent probability that hemp has grown on or near just about every ancient grave in or near Palestine, at one time or another!
posted by dansdata at 7:39 AM on May 3, 2010


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