1668 O. Dapper Kaffrarie in I. Schapera Early Cape Hottentots (1933) 40 Zekeren krachtigen wortel, dien zy dacha noemen.]

1670 J. Ogilby Africa 583 A powerful Root, which they call Dacha; sometimes eating it, otherwhiles mingling it with Water to drink; either of which ways taken, causeth Ebriety.

1785 G. Forster tr. A. Sparrman Voy. Cape Good Hope (1786) I. 145 Bucku (diosma) and wild dacka (phlomis leonurus) which are known both by the colonists and the Hottentots to be as efficacious as they are common.

1796 tr. F. Le Vaillant New Trav. Afr. III. 267 The people wished for tobacco and dacca (the leaves of hemp).

1822 W. J. Burchell Trav. Interior S. Afr. I. 366 The common hemp, called dakka, was here raised..as presents to the Bushmen, who smoke it instead of tobacco.

1835 J. W. D. Moodie Ten Years S. Afr. I. 41 Many of these people [sc. Hottentots] have..a pernicious habit of smoking a plant called ‘dacha’... The ‘dacha rookers’ are held in great contempt by the tobacco smokers of their nation.

1852 R. Godlonton & E. Irving Narr. Kaffir War 306 His dacha sack at the saddle-bow.

1894 C. H. W. Donovan With Wilson in Matabeleland vii. 140 It is exceedingly entertaining to watch these boys ‘dakha-smoking’.

1910 J. Buchan Prester John vii. 119 He must have been a dacha-smoker, for he coughed hideously.

1912 East London Daily Dispatch (S. Afr.) 28 June 9/6 The red Dagga, or ‘Mfincafincane’, of the Kaffirs.

1921 Blackwood's Mag. Jan. 110/2 They are..much addicted to smoking a drug which is known as ‘daka’.

1939 Times Lit. Suppl. 9 Sept. 531/3 Marihuana, otherwise..ganja, dagga, and about a hundred other names.

1950 Cape Times 19 Sept. 12/7 Prison sentences for dagga smokers.

1953 ‘P. Lanham’ & A. S. Mopeli-Paulus Blanket Boy's Moon vi. 131 There is..a huge trade carried on in South Africa in the growing, smuggling and peddling of dagga.

1969 Sci. Jrnl. Sept. 38/1 Some preparations of the [Cannabis] plant, like the ganja of India, are more intoxicating than marihuana... Others, like Indian bhang, Moroccan kif, and South African dagga, are nearly equivalent to marihuana.

1878 H. A. Roche On Trek in Transvaal xii. 251 A Kafir came to ‘daager’ or smear our floors.

1880 H. M. Prichard Friends & Foes 282 Kafir women..smear the walls and floor with ‘dargha’.

1893 R. Blennerhassett & L. Sleeman Adventures Mashonaland 32 We had heard..that ‘daghering’ and ‘smearing’ would be essential parts of our work.

1896 H. L. Tangye In New S. Afr. v. 326 This lends some colour to the theory that the inhabitants adapted themselves..to the practice of the country and lived in dagher huts.

1899 W. H. Brown On S. Afr. Frontier 63 The houses were built of ‘dagga’ (mud), brick, and corrugated iron.

1905 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Mar. 389/1 The room was floored with dagga—anthill earth brought to a high stage of hardness and mahogany-like polish by frequent dressings of bullock's blood and kraal manure.

1936 P. M. Clark Autobiogr. Old Drifter vii. 92 A hut constructed of dagga—that is, ant-heap mixed with cowdung.