Chamurchi Duar (appellation)
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| Chamurchi Duar | |
|---|---|
| Chamoorchee Dooar, Cheemurchee Dooar, Sumchee | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| |
| Chamurchi Duar landscape | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Regional Complex | Eastern Plains |
| Growing Region | The Dooars |
| Growing Area | Jalpaiguri Dooars |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | West Bengal |
| District | Jalpaiguri District |
| Coordinates | 26.82, 88.98 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 650 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately the Nagrakata and Banarhat community development blocks: alluvial plain east of the Jaldhaka, tea estates, garden plots and forest edges |
| Climate | |
| Climate Type | Subtropical humid |
| Seasons | Monsoon (Jun–Sep), Winter (Nov–Feb) |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Cheemurchee (Pemberton 1839), Chamoorchee (Eden 1865) |
| Dated accessions | 2025 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Chamurchi Duar is a landrace cannabis appellation in the Jalpaiguri Dooars growing area of The Dooars, in Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal, India. It is named after Chamurchi, the third from the west of the duars, or passes, through which Bhutan held the plains until the Duar War of 1864–65, and covers the Nagrakata and Banarhat community development blocks, less the Chapramari and Gorumara forests. A survey in June 2025 found feral cannabis along its roads and drainage lines, and household plants at Looksan, Lakhipara and Banarhat.[1]
Geography
The appellation lies on the plain east of the Jaldhaka, where tea estates, rail lines and irrigation channels run between closely spaced villages and market towns. The 2025 survey found the ground below 250 m throughout, with relief only along levees and eroded river banks.[1] Nagrakata, a market town of about 190 m on the New Jalpaiguri–Alipurduar railway, lies about 20 km north-west of Banarhat. Grassmore lies in the Nagrakata block at 180–200 m, and Looksan west of the Deana River at 190–200 m.[1] Most of the land between them is tea estate, with garden plots, rice fields and strips of unmanaged ground along roads and channels.[1]
Santal, Munda, Oraon and other Adivasi families live in the tea estate housing lines. Nepali-speaking villages lie across the estates and their margins, and Rajbanshi communities are numerous in the farmland outside the plantations.
History
Bhutan held eleven duars along the northern frontier of Bengal. Captain R. B. Pemberton, reporting on his mission of 1837–38, listed them from west to east: Darlingcote, Zumurcote, Chamoorchee, Luckee, Buxa and on to the Manas.[2]: 28 (Pemberton's report) Each pass was held by a Bhutanese officer, and the territory below it bore the name of the pass.[2]: 8 (Eden's report) Ashley Eden's report of 1864 gives Chamoorchee's Bhutanese name as Sumchee.[2]: 8 (Eden's report) Pemberton wrote that the Manchee entered the plains by way of Chamoorchee.[2]: 43 (Pemberton's report)
Kishen Kant Bose, whose account of Bhutan was printed with Pemberton's report, placed "the Chamoorchee Jadu or Soubah of that place" under the Paro Pillo, the governor of Paro.[2]: 193 (Bose's account) He also wrote that "the Dahya" lived "in Chamoorchee".[2]: 199 (Bose's account) The duars passed to British India at the end of the Duar War, and in 1911 the district gazetteer described the Western Duars as the tract "between the Tista and Sankos rivers", annexed to Bengal in 1865.[3]: 148
Cultivation
Feral populations
Feral cannabis grew on rubble, road verges and drainage lines throughout the survey route.[1] In central Nagrakata about 15–20 plants stood near the main crossroads; no seed was taken there because a police booth stood next to them. On the outskirts of a smaller settlement north of the town a large population of 1.2–2.5 m plants with skunk and burnt-rubber aromas was collected. While it was being photographed, a tea worker spraying the estate rows sprayed the base of the plants.[1] At Grassmore plants of 1.8–3 m, among the tallest of the survey, grew for about 200 m along a dirt road, with no sign of cultivation.[1] Across the Deana River, on the edge of a tea estate, several hundred squat, bushy plants with acrid, medicinal aromas covered about 400 m² of banks and ditches.[1]
Household cultivation
Most growers met in 2025 said their plants were raised from seed found in local ganja, not from saved or selected lines, and the survey saw no sign of deliberate selection.[1] In Looksan an elderly Bengali-speaking man had planted tall domesticate plants in his garden beside a roadside eating house, where feral plants had come up on their own; he grew maize, turmeric and chillies in the same plot. Other domesticate plants in Looksan reached 3–4 m, with a sweet, melon-like aroma.[1] A single plant of about 2 m grew between two houses in the Lakhipara tea estate. On the outskirts of Banarhat about a dozen plants of 3–4 m grew behind a roadside shack, beside a mixed stand of feral and domesticate plants along a drain.[1]
Commercial cultivation
No commercial plots were seen. People in Looksan and Banarhat described hidden plantings along river banks, on fallow estate land and at forest edges, supplying the local market, and men at the Deana site named Banarhat as a source of better ganja.[1]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250032 | Nagrakata Feral Selection 2025 | Nagrakata | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250033 | Nagrakata' Sukhanibasti' Feral Selection 2025 | Nagrakata | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250034 | Grassmore Feral Selection 2025 | Grassmore | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250035 | Looksan Feral Selection 2025 | Looksan | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250036 | Diana 'Tea Garden' Feral Selection #1 2025 | Dharanipur | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250037 | Diana 'Tea Garden' Feral Selection #2 2025 | Dharanipur | |
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250038 | Lakhipara 'Tea Garden' Feral Selection 2025 | ||
| ZOM-IND-WEB-0620250135 | Looksan General Population 2024 |
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Éloïse (30 June 2025). "Field Report #4: Western Dooars Part II". Zomia Collective. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Political Missions to Bootan, Comprising the Reports of the Hon'ble Ashley Eden, 1864; Capt. R. B. Pemberton, 1837, 1838, with Dr. W. Griffiths's Journal; and the Account by Baboo Kishen Kant Bose (PDF). Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Office. 1865 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ Gruning, John F. (1911). Eastern Bengal and Assam District Gazetteers: Jalpaiguri. Allahabad: Pioneer Press – via Internet Archive.