Qu Yuan was born around 339 BC and gets credit as the first Chinese poet to sign his name to his verse. His epic work was titled Songs of the South, or Chu Ci.
In the Chu Ci, the word shuma first appears in Chinese literature, in a series of poems titled Jou Ge (The Nine Songs), which were apparently adapted from previous shamanic legends. The poem is a dialogue between a shaman and the god of life and death and the goddess of fertility.
“Pluck the shuma and the yaohua, present them to the one who departs. We are getting older, toward the end of our lives, but we are no nearer to each other.”
Yaohua is likely a reference to cannabis flowers, while shuma became identified with the word for “sun.” In early Turkish dialects, the respectful form of a second person pronoun is “su,” and “shu” in Chinese can mean void or mystic. “Ma” is Chinese for hemp. Magu is the Chinese goddess of long life. “Magus” is the ancient Persian word for shaman, from which we now derive the word “magician.” A shaman is a mystic who uses hemp.
Zhang He of William Patterson University wrote a great analysis on these issues, a paper available on the Internet and he quotes Jin Kemu, who first documented the close comparison of the pre-Buddhist Rig Veda, Book 10, Hymn 58, with Chao Hun, known as Calling Back the Souls from the Chu Chi. Victor Mair, another scholar, made similar comparisons between Tian Wen (Heavenly Questions) and the Avesta.
Toward the end of his life, Qu Yuan became so upset by false allegations made against him by a corrupt official in his community that he committed ritual suicide by drowning himself in a nearby river. The Sixth-century book Annual Rituals of Jing Chu describe a ritual held on May 5th, when cannabis branches were to be hung on all doors like Christmas wreaths, although this event has evolved into the annual Dragon Boat festival, and cannabis strangely replaced with calamus, and although Qu Yuan remains the inspiration for the ceremony, they have removed his sacrament.
Why is it wherever the healing potential of Soma-Haoma-Shuma appears, there’s a cover-up and a fake sacrament substituted? Calamus was also employed as the bait-and-switch of the holy anointing oil of Moses, while ephedra became the bait-and-switch employed in the Zoroastrian tradition.
What is it about cannabis that always brings down the wrath of the powers-that-be, because throughout history you’ll find it causing massive waves of enlightenment, followed by massive oppression, followed by a refusal to even admit the plant’s existence.
And why is it a reporter like me can untangle these threads, while our major universities remain clouded by dogmas and misdirections of the past?