Talk:Cannabis in Riffian culture
Discussion page of Cannabis in Riffian culture
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Page scope
The page covers the place of kif, and since the late 1960s of hashish, in the social and religious life of the Rif: where kif was grown and smoked, everyday use, saints and Sufi brotherhoods, Islamic scholars and the question of whether the crop is forbidden, the village faqih, and the identity, stigma and family changes that came with hashish production in the central Rif (the bled du kif). The preparation is covered on Kif, the pipe on Sebsi, and the history, law and cultivation of the crop on Cannabis in Morocco.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and unresolved readings here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
The Riffians proper and their neighbours
- The heartland of the crop lies among the Senhaja de Srair (Ketama, Beni Seddat) and the Ghomara (Beni Khaled), not among the Tarifit-speaking tribes of the central and eastern Rif. The sources disagree about how far smoking reached the latter. Coon (1931, p. 62) found kif not grown in the Rif proper and smoked there only in secret by a few men, usually hawkers; Hart (1976, glossary) calls it seldom used in the Rif but current in the Jebala, and writes that the Riffians were never, in the main, heavy users. Mouliéras (1895, p. 106) describes kif evenings in Temsaman, and Artbauer (1911, p. 163) writes that the Riffian scorned tobacco and smoked kif. The article gives both sides.
- Coon (1931, pp. 62, 116) and Mouliéras (1899, p. 96) attach moral judgements to kif smoking (Coon links its eastward spread to "a degradation of woman" and to sodomy, without evidence; Mouliéras writes of people stupefying themselves). The article reports what they observed and does not repeat these judgements.
The scholars' reply to Hassan I
- Mouna (2009, p. 191) writes that the scholars of Fez replied by forbidding both the use and the trade of intoxicating plants. Tinasti, Afsahi and Mouna (2025, p. 54), citing Mouna (2018), write that the scholars accepted a state monopoly on condition that the public was barred from the drug and the trade phased out. The article gives both.
- Mouna (2009, p. 190, n. 5) dates the sultan's letter "23 Moharrem 1304 (1883)". Bellakhdar (2013, p. 128, n. 6) gives the same Hijri date as 22 October 1886, which is the correct conversion; the article follows Bellakhdar.
The five villages
- The villages named by the growers Afsahi and Mouna interviewed (Griha, Beni Seddate, Beni Issi, Amzaz, Beni Khaled; some add Isfaran) do not match Bellakhdar's list. Chouvy (2022) points out that some of these are tribe or fraction names. The page gives the growers' list as theirs; the question is treated on Cannabis in Morocco.
The Heddawa
- Spelled Heddawa on the page (Brunel, Bellakhdar), Haddawa in Mouna and Hart, Heddaoua in Mouliéras.
- Mouna (2009, pp. 188–189) states that the Haddawa are a branch of the Ismaili Shia and links the Ketama to the Fatimids, and calls the second point a hypothesis. Not used on the page.
- Hart (1976, p. 198, note) dates the order's dissolution by the Moroccan Army of Liberation to 1956 "to my knowledge"; the page keeps his hedge.
Page numbers in Hart (1976)
- The passage on Abdelkrim's ban falls at the turn of pp. 390–391, and the glossary entry for kif on p. 460 or 461; the page breaks are not legible in the copy read, so the page cites the two-page range.
Song and poetry
- None of the sources cited on the page quotes a song or poem about kif in Tarifit or in the dialects of the Jebala. Hart (1976, appendix) prints a Riffian sung couplet containing r-kif, which he translates "cigarette"; whether it means kif is not stated, so it is not used. Artbauer (1911, p. 136) describes love songs and songs of freedom sung at the evening fire where a man cut hemp for the pipe, but does not connect the songs with kif.
Not used
- Westermarck, Wit and Wisdom in Morocco (1930), proverbs 382 and 996, which mention smokers of Indian hemp and the hashish pipe: no region or tribe is given.
- Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco (1926), vol. I, on a written charm against the habit of smoking kif among the Andjra and the Aith Waryaghar: read only in an excerpt reprint.
- The study of 251 Ghomara residents (Meklach et al., Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 18(1), 2019; online 2017) was read in its abstract only; the page uses its stated aim and conclusion.
- Blickman (2017, p. 15) also quotes a party leader giving "nearly 80,000" growers on bail, a different figure from the 48,000 with arrest warrants; the page gives the 48,000.