Talk:Cannabis in Madagascar

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Page scope

Cannabis in Madagascar covers the history of cannabis in Madagascar from the pollen in the highland lake cores to the present law, its Malagasy names, its cultivation for smoking and fibre, how it is smoked, the trade and the herbarium specimens from the island. The country's geography, its growing areas and its seed accessions are treated at Madagascar, Betroka and Analabe.

Data verification

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

Discussion

The pollen evidence

• The pollen at Lake Tritrivakely was first reported in Burney's chapter "Pre-settlement vegetation changes at Lake Tritrivakely, Madagascar" (Palaeoecology of Africa 18, 1987), which is not available online, and in Gasse and Van Campo's 1998 paper. The article cites the papers that report and discuss those findings (Mitchell 2020, Douglass et al. 2019, Beaujard 2011, Merlin 2003) and attributes each date to its author.
• Burney's 1987 chapter is the "1987a" of the later literature; his Quaternary Research paper of the same year (vol. 28, pp. 130–143) is "1987b" and covers the Lake Kavitaha core, not Tritrivakely.
• The pollen type is reported as Cannabis/Humulus. Burney, as quoted at second hand, called it "probably" Cannabis. Mitchell (2020) questions the identification (Celtis pollen, abundant in the same core, looks similar when degraded), the date (an interpolation between two radiocarbon dates across a change in sedimentation) and the link to people (wind-borne pollen, bird-dispersed seed). Beaujard (2011) and Douglass et al. (2019) also allow that the plant may have arrived without people. No paper read for the article answers these objections.
• No source read names the people who might have brought the plant. Merlin (2003) puts the question ("Austronesians colonists or traders from elsewhere?"); Burney, as Merlin reports him, wrote of Indian Ocean sailors; Beaujard (2011) found no evidence linking early human presence to Austronesian speakers. The article gives the settlement dates of each study with its author and draws no conclusion from them.
• The Botswana record (Drotsky's Cave) is dated 4440 ± 350 BP by Mitchell (2020) and c. 3827 ± 298 bp by Merlin (2003), both citing Burney, Brook and Cowart (1994). The article gives no figure, only Mitchell's comparison with the earliest evidence of cultivation south of the Equator.
• Other native Cannabaceae in Madagascar (Trema, Aphananthe, Chaetachme) are not discussed against the pollen in any source read.

Early accounts and the Merina ban

• Flacourt's hemp passage (Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar, 1661, pp. 145–146) was read on the scan of the 1661 edition. The first edition (1658) was not compared. His words for the users include the colonial term of his time; the article does not reproduce it.
• Drury's Jermaughler (1729) is described with seeds "like Hempseed" and a seed pod. Drury does not call it hemp; Ellis (1838) retells his account under the name rongona. No source read connects Drury's word with the provincial jamala of Richardson's dictionary.
• The Tantara ny Andriana passage on rongony (pp. 700–701 of the volume read) is in Malagasy and was read in a damaged machine transcription. Only its main point, that Andrianampoinimerina proclaimed death for anyone caught smoking rongony, is used. The passage gives no date. Other passages in the same volume (pp. 673 and 871–873) appear to treat smoking rongony as an offence like drinking toaka and to bar it from the capital district; they are not used until they are checked against the French translation of the work.
• The date of 1787 sometimes given for the ban was not found in any source read and is not used.
• Ellis (1838) names neither the ruler nor the date of the prohibition he reports.

Colonial and later law

• The decree of 9 October 1915 and the report that accompanied it were read in the reprint in Pruvost's 1917 thesis. The texts of the local orders of 1912 and 1915 were not read; the report names them.
• The 1958 deliberation and Arrêté no. 145-CG were read through the text search of the Journal officiel on Gallica, which shows the operative words but not the penalties. The penalties are not given.
• The text of Ordinance no. 60-073 was not found. Its title is quoted from the repealing article of Law No. 97-039, and its scope from the government's 1993 report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
• Law No. 97-039 was read in two copies whose article numbering of the repealing provision differs (art. 147 or 148). The official text was not available.
• The 1934 League of Nations note says the population did not use "haschisch", which is at odds with the decree of 1915 and with Fontoynont (1938). The article reports each statement as made.

Names

• The origin of the word rongony (Austronesian, Bantu or other) was not found in any source read, and the article says nothing about it.
• The Réunion word zamal is said in some popular sources to come from Malagasy jamala. No source read for the article says so; it is not used.
• Dzamal is a seed seller's name for its Malagasy lines. No source read connects it with jamala, and the article does not.

Sources not used

• Pearce and Pearce, Oceanic Migration (2010), quotes Burney et al. (2004) on the settlement markers, including the pollen. It is a secondary report of that paper and is not used here; the paper itself was not available, and the article cites the studies that discuss the pollen directly.
• Blench (2007) is sometimes cited for a Kavitaha date of about AD 500. It was not read; Beaujard (2011) gives that date and is cited for it.
• Leandri's Flore de Madagascar account of the Urticaceae (1965) mentions Rongony, but the passage was read only in a damaged machine transcription.
• Two Paris sheets collected by "Baron, R." carry no locality or date in the database. Whether the collector is the missionary botanist Richard Baron is not stated in the record.

Images reserved in the article

One image has a place in the article but is not yet uploaded. It is reserved until the file exists:

• File:Cannabis-Madagascar-lake-cores-and-growing-areas-map.jpg (History, Pollen in the highland lakes), a map to be drawn: an outline map of Madagascar marking Lake Tritrivakely and Lake Kavitaha (about 200 km to its north) in the central highlands, Antananarivo, the Andriry area near Betroka in the south and the Analabe area of Ambanja District in the north. Coastline only, no internal borders.