Bong - baung word history of bongs

The word bong is an adaptation of Thai word baung , meaning a cylindrical wooden tube, pipe, or container cut from bamboo stem. The Thai word passed into the English language during the Vietnam War when five American military bases were located in Thailand. Soldiers used to pick up habbits from villagers including smoking cannabis in a Thai kind of pipe called baung. Later the word baung was transformed into bong and brought back to America with troops. One of the earliest recorded uses of the word bong dates to a piece in the January 1971 issue of the Marijuana Review, which said: "Many thanks to Scott Bennett.. for the beautiful special bong he made for my pipe collection."

But could the Thai instead have adopted that word from the Africans? In modern day Kenya, right where Mary Leakey found her water pipe, lives a rapidly disappearing tribe called the Bong’om. Their language is also called Bong’om. Across the continent we find Bong County, Liberia. It is named after Mount Bong. Did all of these Africans cling to some Thai word for a piece of cut bamboo? Or… could the early Thai stoners have named their most beloved device after the people who invented it?

Lovely story, huh ?! Besides one cannot call her/himself a stoner if one haven't mastered a bong :-)