Let’s talk about bongs.
Bongs are stupid. They are a stupid word and they are incredibly common in the industry. Everyone at some point or another has seen (read as: interacted with) a bong. So let’s take a moment to talk about bongs. How they got their name, where they come from, are they the best thing in the market for you.
What is a bong?
A bongs definition reads: “A filtration device used for smoking cannabis, tobacco, or other herbal substances.” The device is two tubes connected by a bowl at the base with an intersecting that carries the material.
The heat goes from the lower pipe to the bottom which activates the liquid (or burns the substance in the extension) with which the air goes out of the end port. That’s all a bong is good for, transferring heat and smoke.
The term ‘Bong’ comes from the thai language which means cylindrical wooden tube. While it has been incredibly common in that area for centuries, that’s not the first recorded usage of a bong or ‘wooded tube used as pipe’ in history.
To know this, we have to go back in time to a group of people known as the Scythians. These were some crazy ornate people who enjoyed art and gilding stuff with gold. They eventually became modern day Russia. But archaeologists in that region discovered bongs as far back as 2400 years ago!
Through the years it has become a common medium with which to smoke anything. Native Americans often smoked a ‘peace pipe’ as every high school kids one friend always talks about like it changes anything. The Chinese used these same pipes for opium, and now we have variations and German designed perfect bongs on every shelf in America.
Difference between Bongs and Water Pipes
The common term for today is water pipes. This term has come into existence because there is such a stigma around bongs. Similar to how people used to say shellshock, and now they say post-traumatic stress disorder, it doesn’t change the fact that it is the same thing.
Instead of being called bongs, they’re called water pipes. Many of them come in different designs, and many people try to change materials, but it’s always best if you use glass in these circumstances.
So that’s it, now you know a thing or two about the Scythians and bongs. As a retrospective looks at it, it’s nice to know where it came from. In the future, I predict that no one will use water pipes anymore. Vaping has become so popular and frankly so much safer than bongs that we might see the last dying out phase of bongs right now. I think we’ll have a clearance sale at some point.
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