Cannabis Japonica at the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum - Barcelona

From May 12, 2022 to February 26, 2023, visitors of the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Barcelona have the opportunity to view "Cannabis Japonica." Visitors will learn about planting customs in rural households, and how silk-like hemp, processed with a unique fermentation technique, was used to create the most precious clothing, from summer kimonos to samurai attire and the garments of Shinto priests. Every aspect of work involving hemp, from planting to weaving, was women’s labour. This continued throughout the Meiji era, when Japan quickly became an industrialized empire.

Photo: This kimono is woven from hemp, a fiber well suited to Japan’s hot and humid summers. It is dyed with a small quantity of ai, the Japanese Indigo plant, giving it the distinctive light blue color called asagi-iro (浅葱色) (excerpt Ⓒ Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum)