Kachin Hills
More actions
| Kachin Hills | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 26.08, 97.38 |
| Regional Complex | Hindu Kush Himalaya |
| Country | Myanmar |
| Provinces/States | Kachin State |
| Area | 89,000 km² |
| Primary Rivers | Irrawaddy |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Kachin country; Kachin Hills tract |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Kachin Hills growing region is a landrace cannabis growing region in the hills of Kachin State, in the far north of Myanmar. Its growing area is Putao. In 1895 the Government of India stated that the plant was "cultivated, both for fibre and drugs, in the Kachin Hills tract of Burma".[1] Colonial botanists and officials also reported hemp growing wild in the forests.[2][3] In 2023 the secretary of a Rawang cultural association said that the Rawang grow hemp, which they call Azi, in farmland round Putao for the thread of their traditional clothes.[4]
Geography
The Irrawaddy forms in the region, where its two head streams, the 'Nmai Kha and the Mali Kha, meet at about 25°45′ N; the Mali Kha flows due south through the Shan state of Hkamti Long. Along its northern stretch, the boundary of Myitkyina District with Yunnan in China followed the watershed between the Irrawaddy and the Shweli, Taping and Salween. In 1912 the upper part of the district, Hkamti Long and the Sana tract, was not under direct British administration.[5]
The region is drawn on the present Kachin State, about 89,000 km². The state also takes in the Irrawaddy plains round Myitkyina and Bhamo. The 2019 Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment counts Kachin State in the Hindu Kush Himalaya.[6]: 6–7
Cultivation history
The Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94
J. E. Bridges, Commissioner of the Eastern Division, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that the Kachins "are said to cultivate the plant in fields", and that the fibre they used to make cloth was said to come from the same plant. He had heard that when the plant was grown for the drug in the Kachin country, its upper part was shielded with a chatty, an earthen pot, and the male plants were rooted out, leaving one standing.[7] The Commission itself wrote that "No account of the Kachin cultivation has been furnished".[8]
Writing of the frontier hills of Assam, the Commission expected homestead cultivation to be found "in the lofty ranges towards the Hukong valley and the north of Burma", and added: "In fact, there is information of the plant being cultivated with some care for fibre and the drugs in the adjoining Kachin Hills."[9] In its chapter on Burma it described Kachins living among the Shans of Nyaungwe State who grew hemp "on a considerable scale for fibre", and judged that the habit "probably adheres to the Kachin race in their own country to the north".[10]
The Government of India's resolution on the report, in 1895, stated that the plant was "cultivated, both for fibre and drugs, in the Kachin Hills tract of Burma", and that "in the Kachin and Shan Hills there is cultivation for home consumption, and some quantity is smuggled into the settled country".[1] The Commission had judged the smuggling into Upper Burma from the Shan States and the Kachin Hills "probably insignificant in quantity".[11]
Wild plants
Major Peile, Inspector-General of Police in Burma, told the Commission that the garrison of 300 men left at a new post at Sima, north-east of Bhamo, had been getting "some kind of ganja", which Kachins found in the jungles and sold to them. He called Sima "in the middle of the Kachin country", and understood that "the Sima stuff was wild".[12] A specimen from these hills that the Commission examined was leaves and tops rolled into balls, "showing no signs of cultivation or preparation". The Commission judged that the plant "probably has run wild in the Kachin country and in the mountain ranges adjoining China, Assam, Manipur, Lushai, and Tippera".[13] The area of wild growth it marked out ran "through Lushailand, Manipur, and the country of the Kachins, to the frontiers of China", its southern edge taking "a northerly sweep to Mogoung in Upper Burma".[14]
Lieutenant E. Pottinger's expedition into the hills north-east of Myitkyina set out from Myitkyina in March 1897 and camped at Mate on 10 June.[15] In the botany of the expedition that he wrote with David Prain, the hemp collected at Mate, at 1,500 ft (about 460 m), is "apparently wild", and its uses "appeared to Lieutenant Pottinger to be unknown to the Kachins".[2] The Myitkyina district gazetteer of 1912 stated that ganja "grows wild in the forest, but the people in places where they have not come in contact with Indians have no idea of its narcotic properties".[3]
Since 2000
In December 2023 Myanmar Digital News published a report from Putao on the hemp of the Rawang, who call the plant Azi. U Sayet Dee, secretary of the Myanmar Rawang Literature and Culture Association, said that the plants "are usually grown in the farmland": in February in the Khalan area, at about 4,000 ft (1,200 m), and in January on the lower Putao plain. He said that the Rawang cannot grow it officially, because hemp is banned as a narcotic drug under Myanmar law.[4]
Growing Areas
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for the Kachin Hills yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 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.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Pottinger, E.; Prain, D. (1898). "A note on the botany of the Kachin Hills north-east of Myitkyina" (PDF). Records of the Botanical Survey of India. 1: 263 – via Botanical Survey of India.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hertz, W. A., ed. (1912). Burma Gazetteer: Myitkyina District. Volume A. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma. p. 16 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hponkan (13 December 2023). "Azi (aka) hemp, the heart of the Rawang people". Myanmar Digital News. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Hertz, W. A., ed. (1912). Burma Gazetteer: Myitkyina District. Volume A. Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing, Burma. pp. 1–2, 12 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Sharma, E.; Molden, D.; Rahman, A.; Khatiwada, Y.R.; Zhang, L.; Singh, S.P.; Yao, T.; Wester, P. (2019). "Introduction to the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment". In Wester, P.; Mishra, A.; Mukherji, A.; Shrestha, A.B. (eds.). The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. Cham: Springer. pp. 1–16. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1_1.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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. 101–102, pp. 39–40 – 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. 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 Major Peile, Inspector-General of Police". 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. 20, p. 392 – 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. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 74–75 – 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. III, "The existence, prevalence, and character of the spontaneous growth", paras. 84–85, pp. 33–34 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Pottinger, E.; Prain, D. (1898). "A note on the botany of the Kachin Hills north-east of Myitkyina" (PDF). Records of the Botanical Survey of India. 1: 224–226 – via Botanical Survey of India.