Bong etymology

The word bong originates from the Thai word “baung”. The original word meant a cylindrical wooden tube, pipe or container cut from a bamboo stem. The Thai word got transferred into the English language during the Vietnam War, this occurrence happened when five American military bases were located to Thailand. The soldiers from the US army picked up local habits off the local villagers. Some of these habits included smoking cannabis in a Thailand designed pipe called the “baung”. Later on the word “baung” was morphed into “bong” and in due coarse brought back to the USA by the troops serving in Thailand. Furthermore one of the first recorded uses of the newly created word “bong” dates back to an article in the “Marijuana Review” dated January 1971. In this article an unknown writer says “Many thanks to Scott Bennett, for the beautiful bong he made for my pipe collection”

Furthermore it is possible that the people of Thailand may have captured the word “baung” from the Africans! In current time Kenya, right where Mary Leakey found her water pipe, lives a swiftly diminishing tribe called the “Bong’om”. Their language has the same name as their tribe name “Bong’om”, furthermore if you travel across the continent we find “Bong Country, Liberia”. The place is named after “Mount Bong”. The question this brings forward is whether the Africans got the word of the people of Thailand or whether it was the opposite way around and premature Thailand stoners named their adored contraption after the people who created it.