The Scythians – High Plains Drifters

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smoke gets in my I

Scythian Society & Dress

The Scythians (as the Greeks referred to them) or Sakas (as the Persians knew them) are believed to have been of Iranian origin. They shared a common language, and maintained well-used trade routes that connected their many distant settlements. Although they were nomadic, the Scythians had a single patriarchal sovereign that the different chieftains all paid tribute to. This leader had an entourage of wealthy nobles who acted as his courtiers, and his position was passed on to his son at his death.

The Scythians had no written language, so much of what is known about them has been derived from the many precious and exquisitely crafted artifacts found in their frozen tombs in Russia, Kazyktstan and the Eurasian plains. These precious items included weapons, jewelry and clothing, and were meant to follow the deceased into the afterlife. They can be viewed in Russian museums, well preserved from their long stay in the frozen tombs.

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Scythian wardrobe as

Many Royal Scyths wore bronze helmets and chain-mail jerkins of the Greek type, lined with red felt. Their shields were generally round and made of leather, wood, or iron, and were often decorated with a central gold ornament in the form of an animal, but other tribesmen carried square or rectangular ones.

All used a double-curved bow, shooting over the horse’s left shoulder; arrows had trefoil-shaped heads made, according to date, of bronze, iron, or bone. Arrows and bow were carried in a gorytos (bow case) slung from the left side of the belt.

Their swords were generally of the Persian type, with an intricately
ornamented heart-shaped or triangular crosspiece. …the sheaths were
often encased in gold worked into embossed designs and offset with paste or ivory inlay and gems.

Their knives were of various shapes and lengths, some being curved in the Chinese manner. They wore the dagger attached to the left leg by straps, and many carried spears or standards surmounted by bronze terminals depicting real or imaginary beasts.

The Scythian’s horses were also outfitted in beautiful and ornate
costumes, and were seen ridden for the first time among many of the peoples they descended upon.

Many of the Scythians had full body tattoos with extremely intricate
tribal designs, depicting both real and imaginary beasts as well as events from their mythology. Looking like the forerunners of modern-day Hell’s Angels, the fierce appearance of the Scythian nomads had a formidably terrifying effect on the people whose lands they invaded.

The astonishing victories of the Scythians brought them a great deal of
fame, and much of Western Persia fell under the rule of Scythian chieftains. It has been recorded that they invaded Syria and Judea around 625 BC, and even reached the borders of Egypt where peace terms were reached with them by the intimidated rulers of that kingdom.

Equality in War



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It was the horseback riding Scythians who overtook the fierce Cimmerian infantry, which fought on foot and didn’t have horses.

Most readers will probably be familiar with the Cimmerians as the people who were later popularized in the famous fictional tales of the displaced Hyperborean Era warrior, Conan the Cimmerian, by Robert E. Howard and later L. Sprague DeCamp. The fierce horseback-riding raiders in the scene at the beginning of macho director John Milius’, Conan the Barbarian, who rape and pillage the young Conan’s tribe, are meant to depict the ancient Scythians.


Cannabis and the Dead




It is most likely the seeds described by Herodotus were seeded

Proving the Myth

Marihuana, the First 12,000 Years:




These cauldrons varied in size from quite small examples to others weighing as much as 75 pounds. An overwhelming majority have a solid base, shaped like a truncated cone, around which the fire was heaped. The upper section is a hemispherical bowl… with handles (shaped like animals) fixed to the rim opposite each other… at Pazyryk, small cauldrons filled with stones and hemp seeds were found standing beneath leather or felt tentlets with three or six supports.

It is known that sacrifices took place with the death of a Scythian king, as the physical evidence collected by archeologists can attest to. For 40 days after the death of a king, the mourners would travel the country conducting the king’s dead body through the lands he had ruled in life. After this the body was taken to a tomb for burial, where a massive sacrifice took place, not only of horses, but of humans as well. The king’s wives, cupbearers and principal servants were destined to join him, willingly or not, in the afterworld.


The Great Goddess

Two extraordinary rugs were also found in the frozen Scythian tombs. One rug had a border frieze with a repeated composition of a horseman
approaching the great goddess Tabiti-Hestia, the patroness of fire and
beasts. She is depicted as holding the “Tree of Life” in one hand and
raising the other in welcome.

Tabiti-Hestia is the only deity who figures in Scythian art. Considering the barbaric nature of these people it is interesting that she is a female, but perhaps really not all that surprising, as many of the peaceful goddesses became more fierce in the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.

In The Woman’s Book of Myths and Secrets, Barbara Walker writes
about the Scythian religion.

The only deity shown in Scythian art was the Great Goddess, whom the Greeks called Artemis, or Hestia or Gaea (The Earth)… Scythians were governed by Priestess-Queens, usually buried alone in richly furnished Kurgans (queen graves)…

The moon-sickle used in mythical castrations of God was a Scythian weapon. A long-handled form therefore came to be called a scythe, and was assigned to the Grim Reaper, who was originally Rhea Kronia [the old crone]in the guise of Mother Time, or Death- the Earth who devoured her own children. Scythian women apparently used such weapons in battle as well as religious ceremonies and agriculture.

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The Scythian Queens






The Enigmatic Enaries



Herodotus wrote of the Thracian’s ability at working hemp fibres, and claimed that their clothes “were so like linen that none but a very experienced person could tell whether they were of hemp or flax; one who had never seen hemp would certainly suppose them to be linen.”


The sorcerers of these Thracian tribes were known to have burned female
cannabis flowers (and other psychoactive plants) as a mystical incense to induce trances. Their special talents were attributed to the “magical heat” produced from burning the cannabis and other herbs, believing that the plants dissolved in the flames, then reassembled themselves inside the person who inhaled the vapors.

Dionysus a Doper?

The majority of scholars are in agreement that Dionysus, the famous Greek God of Intoxication, was originally a Thracian god. Mircea Eliade, probably recognized as the foremost authority on the history of religion, has commented on the Thracian cult of Dionysus, and further he has connected this worship with the use of cannabis:

Prophecy in Thrace was connected with the cult of Dionysus. A certain tribe managed the oracle of Dionysus, the temple was on a high mountain, and the prophetess predicted the future in ‘ecstacy’, like the Pythia at Delphi.

Ecstatic experiences strengthened the conviction that the soul is not only autonomous, but that it is capable of union mystica with the divinity. The separation of soul from body, determined by ecstacy, revealed on the one hand the fundamental duality of man, on the other, the possibility of a purely spiritual post-experience, the consequence of ‘divinization’. Ecstacy could …be brought on by certain dried herbs or by asceticism.

In a foot note to dried herbs, Eliade commented on the use of “Hemp seeds among the Thracians… and among the Scythians”, and refers to some of the ancient shamans as “those who walk in smoke” or Kapnobatai. The Kapnobatai would be dancers and Shamans who used the smoke of hemp to bring ecstatic trances.

The messages from the other world brought back by these ancient Shamans
was taken as authoritative advice by the ancient chieftains and their
tribes. In this sense, the Shamans acted as the conscience or mind of the whole group.

Mellowing with Time

It could well be that in later times the cannabis smoke had somewhat mellowed the Scythians, and their spiritual leaders directed them towards becoming a more civilized people. The ancient Greek historian Ephorus wrote in the fourth century BC that the Scythians ‘feed on mares milk and excel all men in justice’. His comments were followed in the first century BC by Strabo, who wrote that ‘we regard the Scythians as the most just of men and the least prone to mischief, as also far more frugal and independent of others than we are.’


Next Issue: A Hemp Heresy

Probably the most famous of the ancient Shamans who were directly influenced by the Scythian technique of ecstacy through cannabis were Moses, Isaiah, Ezekeil, and some of the other Old Testament Prophets and kings. A grandiose claim? Is the Philosopher stoned? A Hemp Heresy? Join ‘When Smoke Gets in My I’ next month for an in depth look at cannabis in the Old Testament.