H'mong Hemp vs. Marijuana

A H'mong woman holding a Hemp leave

All H'mong clothes are made from hemp.  The H'mong are proud of their handmade clothes. The most beautiful clothes are worn for the new year, festivals, weddings or weekly markets. Beautiful clothing shows a woman's good skill and hard work.

Hemp is one of several varieties of cannabis sativa plants. Most people are familiar with the rasta and indica varieties which are known universally as marijuana, derived from the Mexican slang. Both these varieties are high in THC Tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient needed to get high in marijuana. Cannabis varieties that contain THC are illegal in Vietnam and many other countries.

Hemp does not contain THC. It has been cultivated the world over for more than 12,000 years. The latin name for hemp, sativa, means useful. Hemp can be used as fuel, cloth, paper, food, oil, rope, sail canvas and many other useful things. It is widely regarded as the crop for the future as it has such a low environmental impact. It can be grown and processed without the chemical treatments needed for other plant materials and gives three times as much raw fibre as cotton. Oil made from the hemp’s seeds can be burned as fuel and has fewer emissions than petroleum. 

For H’mong people, making hemp cloth requires about 7 months (from raising the hemp crop to weaving the cloth) and a lot of manual labor. Often in late March and early April when it is the rainy season, the Hmong began sowing hemp.  A piece of fertile land is kept free for growing hemp. Hemp seeds are usually saved from the last crop. The best seeds are beaten and husked. They are sown close together, so that the hemp plants will grow straight and thin with no branches. Thin plants produce a better quality of hemp cloth.

According to H'mong farmers, when sowing seeds, one should not respond to any passerby, or else the seed's soul will travel away with the passerby and the plant will be unable to grow.  Two and a half months after sowing, the hemp reaches about two meters and is ready to be harvested. After harvesting, all leaves and small branches are removed, and the hemp stalk is dried in sunlight from 10 to 14 days until it is completed dry. Then it is separated into bunches according to length. Each stalk is broken at the middle and the bark peeled away from the core. One hemp plant produces 8-12 strips of fiber, and the longest strips can be about 1.6 meters. Hemp strips are tied in a bunch and pounded to remove the hard part of the bark.

Connecting hemp fiber is a long process. A hemp strip is split 10cm from one end and another strip is inserted into the split. The two ends are twisted together tightly so that the knot is not visible. Hmong women often have hemp fiber wound around their waits and hands, and use any spare time to connect strips.  To make the fiber stronger, it is spun on a wooden spinning wheel with a 70cm diameter frame. The wheel (che tu) which is turned by pedaling, draws and twist the fiber from four balls of wet hemp onto four wooden chopsticks which serve as spools. The thread of one spool is attached to one arm of a four-armed horizontal bamboo frame (khau ly). The thread winds around the four arms as the khau ly is rotated, and then the next spool is attached. Next the thread is put in a hole in the ground with cooking ash for one night, and then boiled three times until the fiber turns white. In the final boiling, beeswax is added to make hemp smooth. The khau ly is used once more to stretch the hemp fiber and organize it into skeins.

Finally, the hemp fiber is wound onto a short bamboo stick and then a warp is strung. Traditionally the H'mong weave on a back strap loom and use only one foot to pull a single heddle. The width of the cloth is about 30 to 35cm, which is the length from a skirt waistband to the hem. When taken off the loom, hemp cloth must be washed repeatedly for one month until it becomes as white as possible. Finally, hemp cloth is pressed between a stone and a log to make the cloth smooth and flat.