Mikir Hills
More actions
| Mikir Hills | |
|---|---|
| Karbi Anglong | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Shillong Plateau |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Assam |
| Districts | Karbi Anglong District, West Karbi Anglong District |
| Coordinates | 25.95, 93.40 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 10,400 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong districts: forested hills and flat plains |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Mikir Hills (Nowgong and Sibsagar districts) |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Mikir Hills are a landrace cannabis growing area in Assam, India, mapped on Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong districts, in the Shillong Plateau growing region. Pig farmers surveyed in five blocks of Karbi Anglong between 2016 and 2020 chopped the raw and dried leaves of Indian hemp into pig feed as a remedy for loss of appetite.[1] In 1893 J. J. S. Driberg, Assam's Commissioner of Excise, named the Mikir Hills in his survey of the hill country round the valley of the Brahmaputra for the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, and called all of those hill tracts "ganja-producing tracts".[2]
Geography
Karbi Anglong District covers 7,399 km² and has its headquarters at Diphu.[3] The district administration describes a land of dense green hills and flat plains, bordered by Nagaland and Golaghat to the east, Hojai to the west, Golaghat and Nagaon to the north, and the North Cachar Hills (Dima Hasao) and Nagaland to the south. Average rainfall is about 2,416 mm a year.[4]
In 1905 the Mikir Hills measured about 60 miles by 36; the greater part lay in Sibsagar district and the western spurs in Nowgong. Hill and valley alike were under dense forest, except where the Mikirs had cleared it for shifting cultivation, and the hill people grew dry rice, vegetables and cotton on the slopes.[5] The district administration traces the present district to 17 November 1951, when the hills were joined with the North Cachar Hills in a single district. The two were separated in 1970, and a notification of 14 October 1976 gave the Mikir Hills district its present name. The district has autonomy under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India.[4]
History
Driberg's survey of 1893 began with the Garo Hills, on the borders of Goalpara, and went east along the hills bordering the Brahmaputra Valley: "To the east of the Jaintia Hills are the Mikir Hills and the Naga Hills." He told the Commission that the districts of both Assam valleys were surrounded by hills whose people the government, with few exceptions, either did not control at all or controlled only politically, and that the drug was brought down from all these hill tracts to the plains and secretly sold or bartered for other goods.[2] J. D. Anderson, the officiating Commissioner of Excise, wrote that the wild hemp plant grew abundantly all over Assam as a weed and was "especially abundant in the hill districts".[6]
W. W. Hunter's statistical account of Nowgong district, which held the western part of the hills, stated in 1879 that hemp and flax were not cultivated in the district.[7] Allen's Nowgong gazetteer wrote that wild ganja grew very freely in Nowgong, though it was doubtful whether it was much used except as a medicine for cattle; its leaves were sometimes dried and mixed with milk, water and sugar to make a drink. The excise ganja sold in the district was imported from Rajshahi.[8]
Uses
In the 2016–2020 survey of pig farming in the Lumbajong, Bokajan, Howraghat, Samelangso and Nilip blocks of Karbi Anglong, farmers named Cannabis sativa, under the name "hemp/Bahang", among the plants they used to treat their pigs: both raw and dried leaves were chopped and mixed with the feed of pigs that had lost their appetite.[1]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for the Mikir Hills yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Doley, Monuj Kumar; Maibangsa, Subal; Baruah, Neethi; Neog, Manoranjan; Shyam, Janmoni; Hazarika, Ritam; Pathak, Prasanna Kumar (July 2022). "Ethnoveterinary practices amongst tribal pig farmers in Karbi Anglong district of Assam, India" (PDF). Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge. 21 (3): 558–568. doi:10.56042/ijtk.v21i3.38302. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. J. S. Driberg, Commissioner of Excise and Inspector General of Police and Jails". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 2, answer 70, pp. 532–533 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Karbi Anglong District Administration. "District at a glance". Karbianglong, Government of Assam. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Karbi Anglong District Administration (9 July 2025). "District Profile". Karbianglong, Government of Assam. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Allen, B. C. (1905). Assam District Gazetteers. Vol. VI: Nowgong. Calcutta: City Press. ch. I, "Physical Aspects" – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. D. Anderson, Deputy Commissioner; Officiating Commissioner of Excise". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Assam witness no. 4, p. 535 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Hunter, W. W. (1879). A Statistical Account of Assam. Vol. I: Districts of Kamrup, Darrang, Nowgong, Sibsagar, and Lakhimpur. London: Trübner & Co. p. 191.
- ↑ Allen, B. C. (1905). Assam District Gazetteers. Vol. VI: Nowgong. Calcutta: City Press. ch. VII, "General Administration" – via Internet Archive.