Ghomara
More actions
| Ghomara | |
|---|---|
| Ghomara country | |
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2023 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Rif Mountains |
| Geography | |
| Country | Morocco |
| Province/State | Chefchaouen Province |
| Coordinates | 35.15, -4.83 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 1,500 km² |
| Terrain | Mountain slopes falling to the Mediterranean coast between the Oued Laou and Al Hoceima Province; approximately the Cercles of Jebha and Assifane and the Caïdats of Bou Ahmed and Talambote, Chefchaouen Province |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 2023 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 5 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Ghomara is a landrace cannabis growing area on the coastal slopes of Chefchaouen Province, in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, in the country of the Ghomara tribes. Yassin Meklach and Abderrahmane Merzouki, who studied schooling there, found that cannabis was grown by many Ghomara families and that the crop shaped their children's lives at secondary school.[1]
The Ghomara country
Meklach and colleagues write that the Ghomara country, on the coastal hillside of Chefchaouen Province, is formed by ten tribes: the Beni Ziat, Beni Sejel, Beni Bouzra, Beni Selmane, Beni Mansour, Beni Guerir, Beni Smih, Metioua, Beni R'zine and Beni Khaled. In 2010 the area fell into two administrative circles, Bab Berred and Bou Ahmed, and four caïdats, Jebha, Assifane, Bou Ahmed and Talambote. They estimated its population at about 145,000.[2]: 289 The four rural communes of their later study, Stehat, Bni Bouzra, Bni Mansour and Bni Selmane, run from the Mediterranean on the north-east to the river Oued Laou on the north-west, and to Al Hoceima Province on the south-east. Farmers were the largest group among the fathers of the pupils they surveyed, followed by fishermen, most of whom also had fields.[1]
In Ghomara, one of the Berber languages of the Rif, the word kif is feminine; in Senhaja, spoken in the central Rif, it is masculine.[3]
Kif and tobacco before the 1980s
Jamal Bellakhdar draws on the reports of Abderahmane Ben Tayeb, a scholar from Bejaïa who crossed the Rif and the Jebala country several times between 1872 and 1893 and whose accounts Mouliéras published. Among the Metioua he saw large fields of snuff tobacco and kif, the tribe's main products, which pedlars carried to distant markets. The Beni Khaled and the Beni Ziat, also of Ghomara descent, were great growers and consumers of both, and among the Beni Zejjel, another Ghomara tribe, plots of tobacco and kif stood among the vegetable gardens.[4]: 126–127
In Bellakhdar's account, cannabis cultivation, by then tied to the international hashish trade, overflowed the Senhaja country of the central Rif in the 1980s and spread into the lands of the Ghomara, the Beni Boufrah and the Jebala, where it had until then occupied only small areas.[4]: 136 The sociological study attached to the 2004 national cannabis survey found that growers newer to the crop acknowledged the greater skill of the people of Ketama and of the Ghomara. Among the Ghomara it found that the douar, the village, remained a working social unit, with shared places round its basic facilities and religious life.[5]
Family labour
In a survey of 249 people in the Ghomara country published in 2010, most respondents said that women took part in cannabis work: 85 per cent said women sowed, weeded, harvested, carried and dried the crop, and sometimes beat it for its resin. More than four in five said women took part in the final making of kif or hashish. Selling the product remained a man's task for 70 per cent of them, and two-thirds said women had no hand in managing the income it brought.[2]: 290–291
Meklach and Merzouki's study of the secondary school at Stehat, which draws pupils from the four communes, found that children of 12 to 16 from growing families guarded the fields in turn, day and night, from shelters of branches and cane called nouwala, and helped with the harvest, carrying and threshing. The crop's season overlaps the school year: watering often takes place at night in the weeks before examinations. Families kept these tasks within the household even after they had bought machines and hired outside workers, because the work is illegal and depends on trust; sieving the resin needs a helper, usually a child. Pupils from growing families had lower marks than their classmates. The authors state that their findings come from one district and cannot be generalised beyond it.[1]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| INM-MAR-CHE-0520230007 | Iwan 94 (Alaoui) General Population 2023 | Alaoui | |
| INM-MAR-CHE-0520230010 | Bni Rzin 97 (Bni Rzin) General Population 2023 | Bni Rzin | |
| INM-MAR-CHE-0520230011 | Mtiwa 98 (Kawarin) General Population 2023 | Kawarin | |
| INM-MAR-CHE-0520230012 | Bni Smih 99 (Ikarouchn) General Population 2023 | Ikarouchn | |
| INM-MAR-CHE-0520230015 | Stiha 104 (Keldet) General Population 2023 | Keldet |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Meklach, Yassin; Merzouki, Abderrahmane (2021). "Cannabis cultivation as a factor influencing scholastic performance: The case study of Ghomara's secondary school students (Chefchaouen province, north-western Morocco)". The Journal of Quality in Education. 11 (18): 20–46. doi:10.37870/joqie.v11i18.266.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Meklach, Y.; Sanchez Alhama, J.; Molero Mesa, J.; Martos, A. V.; Ouahrani, A.; Merzouki, A. (2010). "Cannabis and sustainable development in Ghomara's mountains (western coastal part of Rif – north of Morocco): the gender makes the difference?" (PDF). Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa. 12 (3): 286–303.
- ↑ Chouvy, Pierre-Arnaud (2022). "Moroccan hashish as an example of a cannabis terroir product". GeoJournal. 88 (4): 3833–3850. doi:10.1007/s10708-022-10791-5.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bellakhdar, Jamal (2013). "L'histoire du chanvre au Maghreb". Hespéris-Tamuda. XLVIII: 107–141. ISSN 0018-1005.
- ↑ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Agence pour la Promotion et le Développement Economique et Social des Préfectures et Provinces du Nord du Royaume (May 2005). Maroc: Enquête sur le cannabis 2004 (PDF) (Report) (in français). UNODC.