Talk:Ghomara

Talk

Discussion for: Ghomara • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

Ghomara treats Ghomara as a cannabis growing area: the country of the Ghomara tribes on the Mediterranean slopes of Chefchaouen Province. It covers the area, the record of kif and tobacco there in the late nineteenth century, the spread of commercial cannabis and the family labour on which the crop depends. The rest of the province is treated at Chefchaouen.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why Ghomara is a growing area

• Meklach and colleagues (2010) surveyed 249 people in the Ghomara country about women's work, including their work in cannabis fields. Meklach and Merzouki (2021) studied pupils from cannabis-growing families in four Ghomara communes and describe cultivation there as widespread.
• Bellakhdar (2013), drawing on reports of 1872 to 1893, names the Metioua, Beni Khaled, Beni Ziat and Beni Zejjel, all Ghomara tribes, as growers of kif and tobacco. He describes commercial cannabis spreading into the Ghomara lands in the 1980s.
• Five genebank lots collected in 2023 fall inside the border.
• The status is Active: the 2010 and 2021 studies describe cultivation in their survey years.

Extent and border

• Meklach and colleagues (2010) define the area as the coastal hillside of Chefchaouen Province, formed by ten tribes, and say that it fell in 2010 into the circles of Bab Berred and Bou Ahmed and the caïdats of Jebha, Assifane, Bou Ahmed and Talambote.
• The map border is approximate. It is drawn on the present units that cover those four caïdats: the Cercle de Jebha (communes of Amtar, Ouaouzgane, M'tioua, Bni Smih and Bni Rzine), the Cercle d'Assifane (Bni Selmane and Beni Mansour), the Caïdat de Bou Ahmed (Stehat and Bni Bouzra) and the Caïdat de Talambote. Together they cover about 1,530 km². The administrative units have been reorganised since 2010, so the match is close but not exact.
• The 2021 study's four communes, Stehat, Bni Bouzra, Bni Mansour and Bni Selmane, all lie inside it. Six of the ten tribes named in 2010 share their names with communes inside it.
• The Beni Khaled named among the ten tribes reach inland towards Ketama; their territory is not drawn here.
• The area figure in the infobox is rounded from the border.

Sources

• Meklach et al. 2010. Published in the Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 12(3), pp. 286–303, the version cited. The same paper appeared in M+A Revista Electrónica de Medioambiente 9 (2010), pp. 1–14; the two texts were compared and match on every passage used.
• Meklach and Merzouki 2021. Its subject is schooling, not farming, and the authors say their findings do not generalise beyond the district. The article carries that limit.
• Bellakhdar 2013. The nineteenth-century observations are those of Abderahmane Ben Tayeb, whose accounts were published by Mouliéras (1895, 1899). They are given as his, through Bellakhdar, pp. 126–127.
• The 2004 national survey mentions the Ghomara twice in its sociological study, for growers' skill and for the douar as a social unit.
• Language. The gender of kif in Ghomara and Senhaja comes from Chouvy (2022), who cites Mourigh's grammar of Ghomara and Gutova's study of Senhaja.