Talk:Souss

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Page scope

Souss treats the Souss as a historical cannabis growing area: the valley of the Oued Souss and its edges where the sources place small kif plots in the early twentieth century (Ouled Berhil, Aoulouz, Askaoun, Aït Baha, the Haouara of Ouled Taïma). It covers those plots and the soussi kif named in 1956. The Souss as a region of Morocco is not otherwise covered.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the Souss is a growing area

Raynaud (1902, p. 108): many Indian-hemp plantations in Morocco, notably in the Souss and at Marrakesh, grown mainly for kif.
Guichard (France-Maroc, 15 April 1919, p. 103): the kif "de Haouara et de Haskoura dans le Sous" was much sought after in Marrakesh.
Bellakhdar (2017, pp. 128–129), citing Guichard and Dardanne (1924): resin hemp among the Haouara of Ouled Taïma, and scattered micro-plots at Ouled Berhil, Aït Baha among the Chtouka, Tazarte, Aoulouz and Askaoun.
Afsahi (2017, p. 103), from interviews with people of the Souss: plots among peppers, aubergines and maize at Tazarete, Ouled Berhil, Chtouka, Houara and on the heights of Askaoune-Aoulouz.
The area is not placed under a growing region.

Growing status

The status is Historical: the sources describe growing before 1925 and, for the soussi variety, a southern Atlas cultivation in 1956 that names no place in the Souss. None of the sources describes growing in the Souss after that, and none says it ended.
First grown: 1902, the year of Raynaud's book.
Last grown: 1924, the year of Dardanne's study, the later of the two works that Bellakhdar cites for the Haouara of Ouled Taïma. Bellakhdar's micro-plots are "of the same period" and carry no year of their own. Afsahi's interviews are undated.
Afsahi and Chouvy (Drogues, enjeux internationaux no. 8, 2015, p. 7) report that in 2010 the national agricultural research institute and the Gendarmerie's laboratory tried industrial fibre-hemp varieties with less than 0.2 per cent THC (Santhica 27, Epsilon 68 and Futura 75) in other regions, notably round Agadir and Béni Mellal. These were trials of fibre varieties and name no field or commune; they do not show cannabis grown in the Souss as a crop, and the status stays Historical.

Extent

Boumalk (Encyclopédie berbère 43, 2019) gives the wide sense of the name: the mountains of the western High Atlas, the Anti-Atlas and the Siroua and the plain enclosed between them. In a narrower sense the Souss is the plain of the Oued Souss, about 7,000 km², between the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas (Encyclopædia Universalis).
The places the sources name lie in Taroudant Province (Ouled Berhil, Aoulouz, Askaoun, Ouled Teima) and Chtouka Aït Baha Province (Aït Baha), by the map data. Boumalk lists the Chtouka among the tribes of the Souss valley and the Houara as an Arabic-speaking enclave of the Souss in Taroudant Province.
Tazarte (Bellakhdar) and Tazarete (Afsahi) are not identified on the map: several places of similar name exist in the region.
The infobox point (30.47, −8.88) is the town of Taroudant.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy drawn on Taroudant Province (OpenStreetMap administrative relation 1712796) and Chtouka-Aït Baha Province (relation 2529627), the two provinces that hold every place the sources name. Its outer edge leaves out the bare and sparse ground of the Anti-Atlas, as ESA WorldCover maps it; the land inside the line is kept. It covers about 18,500 km², the figure in the infobox.
The proxy is wider than the Souss in its narrow sense, the plain of about 7,000 km²: it takes in the slopes of the High Atlas, the Siroua and the Anti-Atlas round the plain, where Askaoun and Aït Baha lie.
The Souss and the Haouz meet along the crest of the High Atlas.

Sources and conflicts

The Haskoura. Guichard (1919) places the kif of the Haskoura "in the Souss"; Bellakhdar (2017) places the Haskoura in the region of Demnate, in the High Atlas east of Marrakesh, and Afsahi follows Guichard. The article names the Haskoura only in Guichard's sentence and does not place them; Talk:Haouz has the same note.
Pipe bowls. Raynaud (1902, p. 109) writes that the Jews of Rabat made clay bowls for kif pipes and that in the Souss they were made of white agate. Bellakhdar (2017, p. 128, n. 30) reads Raynaud as saying that the Jews of the Souss made both kinds. The article follows Raynaud.
Dardanne (1924). What the article gives from Dardanne is Bellakhdar's attribution. The micro-plots are Bellakhdar's account and he does not name their source.
soussi. Benabud (1957) lists the variety with others grown in "the southern Atlas region and the Moroccan Sahara". None of the sources explains the name or places the variety in the Souss.

Accessions

Mardochée s.n., Ida Ouchemlal (1875) is a herbarium sheet labelled Cult. Ida Ouchemlal, from a district in the mountains of south-western Morocco. Le Chatelier (1891) places the Ida ou Semlal in the massif of the Tazeroualt, in the coastal basins "between Sous and Drâa", and none of the sources places them in the Souss itself. The sheet carries no coordinates. It is not filed to this area.