Shan Hills
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| Shan Hills | |
|---|---|
| HistoricalGrown here in the past; no recent record either way | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 21.72, 98.12 |
| Regional Complex | Hindu Kush Himalaya |
| Country | Myanmar |
| Provinces/States | Shan State |
| Area | 155,600 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Salween |
| Growing history | |
| Grown | until 1894[1] |
| Earlier names | Shan States; Kachin and Shan Hills |
| Dated accessions | 1959–2025 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Shan Hills is a historical cannabis growing region on the uplands of Shan State, in eastern Myanmar. From the evidence of its witnesses the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission judged in 1894 that the Shans and the Danu appeared to rear the plant for the drug in their homestead land and the Palaungs, Kachins and "Lawas" to grow hemp for fibre in fields.[2] The following year the Government of India stated that there was cultivation for home consumption in the Kachin and Shan Hills.[3] The places the witnesses described include the state of Nyaungywe (Yawnghwe) and the Myelat.[1][4]
Geography
In 1908 the Southern Shan States covered about 36,000 square miles. Their neighbours were the Northern Shan States to the north and China to the east. To the south lay China, French Laos, Siam and Karenni; to the west, the Kyaukse, Meiktila and Yamethin districts of Upper Burma and the district of Toungoo. Except for a tract on the western boundary and the eastern half of Kengtung, they lay in the basin of the Salween, which ran through them from north to south.[5]
A range averaging over 5,000 feet runs along the western boundary above the plains of Yamethin and Kyaukse, with the peaks of Sindaung and Myinmati near Kalaw. East of it the Myelat is a high country of open rolling downs, large tracts of them almost treeless and rather dry. Farther east the downs give way to ranges running north and south with valleys between them. The first of these valleys, that of Yawnghwe, is well watered, with savannah woodland and cultivated land and Inle Lake at its centre; the lake, about 12 miles long and 6 broad, drains by the Nam Pilu into the Salween.[5]
The region is drawn on the present-day state, about 155,600 km².
Cultivation history
Ganja from the Shan States
Two officials of Upper Burma whose statements Bridges sent to the Commission spoke of ganja from the Shan States. Maung Gyi, a cavalry officer of the Burmese government and later a head constable at Wundwin in Meiktila district, had seen ganja smoked whenever he went with the troops to the Shan States. He said that "Ganja plants were cultivated extensively in almost every Shan village for importation to the plains for sale to elephant owners". Maung Lu Maung, the thugyi of Yindaw in Yamethin district, said that the habit of smoking ganja had come from the Shan States, "where ganja was and is still cultivated largely".[4]
The Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94
The Commission heard witnesses from Burma at Mandalay on 30 and 31 January 1894 and at Rangoon from 6 to 9 February.[6] In its report it wrote that J. E. Bridges, the Commissioner of the Eastern Division, and Saw Maung, a former Sawbwa (chief) of Nyaungywe, were "the only witnesses who give any details of the cultivation in Burma". From their evidence it judged that the Shans and the Danu appeared to rear the plant for the drug in their homestead land and the Kachins, Palaungs and "Lawas" to grow it for fibre in fields. From Saw Maung's account it described how a grower split the stem when it was about as thick as a finger, wedged a piece of wood into it and rested an earthen pot or a basket over the flower head for about a month, to stop the plant growing and thicken the head.[2]
The Commission judged Saw Maung's account of his own state "probably typical of the practice of the Shans over a much larger area". In the Danu and Shan country, it wrote, a few plants were reared in each case for home consumption; the practice was more common among the Danu than among the Shans, and some of the produce was smuggled into Burma.[7] Danu had been caught carrying ganja into Burma, though Bridges did not think the smuggling general.[4] The Commission thought the smuggling into Upper Burma from the Shan States and the Kachin Hills "probably insignificant in quantity".[8]
Kungyi, uncle and chief adviser of the Sawbwa of Hsipaw (Thibaw), north-east of Mandalay, said that the plant was not cultivated for narcotic purposes in his state "so far as I know". The Kachins grew it for fibre, he said, but there were no Kachins in Hsipaw.[9]
In its resolution on the Commission's report the Government of India stated that cultivation was on the whole efficiently checked in the settled districts of Burma, "and in the Kachin and Shan Hills there is cultivation for home consumption, and some quantity is smuggled into the settled country".[3]
Nyaungywe
Saw Maung's state of Nyaungywe, which the Imperial Gazetteer calls Yawnghwe, lay around Inle Lake, with its capital near the head of the lake and Fort Stedman a few miles to the south.[10] He put it at about 60 miles from north to south and 28 from east to west, with some Danu villages inside it. There the hemp plant, bhen bin, was "used but little for the drug". The Shans grew a few plants here and there, and such cultivation "would not be found in every Shan village"; the Danu villages of the state grew and used the drug in the same way. The plants stood 7 or 8 feet and gave six or seven heads each. The dried heads and leaves, called séjouk, were shredded and smoked with tobacco in small cigars or put in curries, and were taken against debility, dyspepsia and malaria. About two Shan men in a hundred smoked the drug and women never did. Because the Shans were Buddhists, he said, intoxicating drugs had been prohibited in the state; the hemp drug might be grown only for medicine. It was never sold outside the state.[1] Bridges wrote that Saw Maung had told him that 20 per cent of the Shans and 30 per cent of the Danu smoked ganja.[4]
Hemp for fibre
In Nyaungywe the plant was grown "principally for its fibre", Saw Maung said. Palaungs, Kachins and Lawas grew it in fields, each patch smaller than a hall of 60 by 35 feet, and nearly every house had a plot. The plant grown for fibre was called gom bin and was "precisely the same plant" as the one grown for the drug; the fibre was used in the grower's house and was not sold.[1] Bridges was told that the Kachins used the fibre to make cloth.[4] The Commission described a Kachin "habit of growing the hemp on a considerable scale for fibre" and thought that it probably extended over the mountain tract up to Assam.[7]
Seed collections
The Real Seed Company has sold seed under the name Burmese since 2021, which it says was collected in Shan State. The company calls Shan State an ethnically Tai region and the line a Tai ganja landrace; it says that the seed was collected by a cultivator from Laos who took it home to grow there.[11][12]
Growing Areas
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Growing area | Collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nair & Nordal 4090 (1959) | Nair & Nordal 4090 herbarium specimen, Kalaw (1959) | Myelat | |
| RSC-MMR-SHA-0120210001 | Burmese General Population 2021 | ||
| RSC-MMR-SHA-0120230001 | Burmese General Population 2023 | ||
| RSC-MMR-SHA-0120250001 | Burmese General Population 2025 |
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Saw Maung, ex-Sawbwa of Nyaungywe State". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Burma witness no. 50, pp. 406–407 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. V, "Methods of cultivation and matters connected therewith", para. 211, pp. 80–81 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Government of India (21 March 1895). Resolution No. 1369 Ex. [on the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission] (Report). Calcutta: Finance and Commerce Department, Separate Revenue (Excise). I. Cultivation, paras. 3–14, pp. 2–5 – via National Library of Scotland.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. E. Bridges, Commissioner of the Eastern Division". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Burma witness no. 3, pp. 377–380 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Shan States, Southern". The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. XXII (New ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1908. pp. 248–250 – via Digital South Asia Library.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. I, "Introductory", paras. 8–16, pp. 6–14 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 136–138, pp. 52–54 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", para. 327, p. 122 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Kungyi, uncle of Sawbwa of Hsipan (Thibaw)". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Burma witness no. 51, p. 407 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Yawnghwe". The Imperial Gazetteer of India. Vol. XXIV (New ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1908. pp. 415–416 – via Digital South Asia Library.
- ↑ "Burmese". The Real Seed Company. Retrieved 24 September 2026.
- ↑ "Burmese". The Real Seed Company. Archived from the original on 26 November 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2026.