Talk:Pegu Yoma

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Page scope

Pegu Yoma treats the Pegu Yoma (Bago Yoma), the range between the Ayeyarwady and Sittaung valleys, as a historical cannabis growing region, from evidence of 1893 to 1979. No growing area below it is named in the sources. It has no regional complex: no source read places the range in one. Karen use of ganja outside the range, such as the growers of Lewe township under Burmese rule, belongs on the pages for those places.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

The Burma Gazetteer for Toungoo district (1914, p. 66): ganja "has for many years been brought down by Burman traders from the western hills, where it is grown, in remote spots by Karens, and sold in the plains". The same volume (pp. 1–2) describes the hills west of the Sittaung in the district as the Pegu Yoma, and places Karen settlements "among the foothills of the Pegu Yoma" (p. 19).
The Burma Gazetteer for Tharrawaddy district (1920, pp. 93–94): the Karens "have taken to cultivating it in outlying parts of the Yoma"; yearly Excise raids had found plantations of about an acre each. In this volume "the Yoma" is the Pegu Yoma, the district's eastern boundary and its only considerable hills (pp. 4–5).
The Report on the Administration of Burma for 1921–22 (paras. 118 and 232): "the plantations in the Pegu Yoma from which ganja is produced", and a combined drive in November 1921 that "destroyed numerous plantations". The report for 1922–23 (para. 152) calls the drive's targets "growing ganja crops".
Two cables of the United States embassy in Rangoon (Rangoon 3168, 15 November 1975; Rangoon 3622, 24 December 1975), summarising Burmese newspapers: raids on "known" ganja plantations in the Pegu Yoma area in October 1975 (eleven acres, over 20,000 plants) and 10,685 plants destroyed there in the last week of November.
The Working People's Daily (Rangoon), 2 November 1979, pp. 1 and 8, reproduced by the Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS L/8789, 29 November 1979): police destroyed "clandestine marijuana plantations in the eastern and western part of Pegu Yoma".
Earlier and weaker statements, given in the article with their wording: the Deputy Commissioner of Pegu to the Hemp Drugs Commission (1893–94), reporting cultivation "near the Yomas" before the prohibition; the belief of the District Superintendent of Police of Toungoo in 1899, doubted by his Deputy Commissioner; the police reports of 1902 and 1903 on ganja "brought from the Pegu Yomas"; the Administration Report for 1912–13 on hemp "being grown in the hills" of Tharrawaddy; the Pegu district gazetteer (1917), which thought ganja had "probably been grown in small quantities in the Yomas since early times".

Who grew it

The two district gazetteers (Toungoo 1914, Tharrawaddy 1920) name Karens as the growers. Neither names an informant or says which Karen group; the Toungoo volume names Sgaw- and Paku-speaking groups in the hills west and east of the Sittaung south of Toungoo, without tying them to the ganja.
The Henzada district report for 1903, in the police report for that year, says that Indian traders bought ganja "from Shans in the Pegu Yomas". It does not say whether these Shans grew it or only sold it, or where in the range they lived. The two statements are given in the article side by side, each with its source; the sources do not settle whether they describe different valleys or different decades.
The Deputy Commissioner of Pegu answered the Commission's printed question 17 ("By what classes of the people are the preparations of the hemp drug respectively made?") with "Formerly by Karens and Talaings". The answer is about who made the preparations, not who grew the plant, and the article keeps it in those terms.
The reports of 1975 and 1979 name no growers.

Wild or grown

The Imperial Gazetteer (1908) says that ganja "grows wild on the Pegu Yoma" and is brought down by agents. The Tharrawaddy gazetteer (1920) says it was "said to be indigenous in the Yoma", first collected as a medicine for elephants and then cultivated by Karens. The Toungoo gazetteer (1914) says it was grown. The 1921 drive, the 1923–24 raid and the reports of 1975 and 1979 speak of plantations or cultivation. The article gives each statement in the source's own terms. A plant gathered wild and a plant grown are both recorded as cannabis taken from the range.

Growing status

The status is Historical. The latest year a source records cannabis grown in the range is 1979, from The Working People's Daily of 2 November 1979: the poppy destruction it reports took place in the first three months of 1979, and the marijuana plantations are reported in the same item. The first year is left blank: the Deputy Commissioner of Pegu speaks of cultivation before the prohibition of 1873 without a year, and the Pegu district gazetteer's "since early times" is a surmise.

No source since 2000 was found that reports cannabis grown in the range. Read and not used:

Burmese radio, reported by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS-EAS-90-019, 29 January 1990): under the project "Mya Sein", 286,430 marijuana plants (81.85 tons) were destroyed in Bago Division in 1989. A second report (FBIS-EAS-90-033, 16 February 1990) gives 61 tons for the same operation. Both name the division, not the range.
Myanmar's report to the United Nations General Assembly's special session on drugs (A/S-20/12, 16 June 1998): marijuana "is mostly grown illegally in the central and southern regions of Myanmar mainly in the Bago Division, Kayin State and Tanintharyi Division". It names the division, not the range.
A cable of the United States embassy of 7 December 1976 (Rangoon 3991): 5,672 ganja plants burned in "the area around Monyo, some 90 miles north of Rangoon". Monyo is not placed in the range by the cable.
A Karen Human Rights Group interview recorded in Htantabin township, Toungoo District, in November 2016: asked about drugs such as marijuana, the village head said he had not heard of them in the area.
The English Wikipedia article on cannabis in Myanmar lists Magway and Ayeyarwady among the regions where cannabis is grown, citing a Transnational Institute report of 2015 whose cited pages give no regional list.

Whether the plantations of the 1970s continued is not settled by anything read. The status says nothing either way.

Places named in the sources

The sources use "the Pegu Yoma", "the Pegu Yomas" and "the Yomas" for the range. The 1899 and 1903 police reports and the Pegu gazetteer (1917) use the plural. The Toungoo and Pegu gazetteers use "the Yoma" and "the Pegu Yoma" for no other range, so these are read as the Pegu Yoma.
The Administration Reports for 1912–13 and 1923–24 speak of "the hills" of Tharrawaddy district. The district gazetteer names the Pegu Yoma as the district's only considerable hills, apart from a small laterite rise in the north-west.
The 1979 report's "Western Yoma" is not identified in the source and is not linked.
Lewe township, Yamethin district: a township officer told the Commission's witness J. E. Bridges that under Burmese rule "It was only Karens who cultivated large quantities of ganja for sale to timber traders (Thitgaungs)". No source read places those Karens on the Pegu Yoma (the Imperial Gazetteer places the Karens of Yamethin district in the hilly areas in the west of Pyinmana township, and the Yamethin gazetteer of 1934 names two villages in Lewe township with a few Karens, without placing them on the range), so the statement is not used here. The proxy border does reach into the old Lewe township.
W. F. H. Grey's report of cultivation in toungyas (jungle clearings) in Prome district is given in the article as he said it; he does not say where in the district.

The name

The title follows the colonial sources, which call the range the Pegu Yoma. Bago Yoma is the present-day name. The English Wikipedia article is titled "Pegu Range".

Dates

The Tharrawaddy gazetteer says that ganja "has been forbidden since 1872". The Hemp Drugs Commission gives 1873 for the prohibition in British Burma; the article follows the Commission.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy drawn on the range as a natural feature: the land at or above 120 m between the Ayeyarwady and Sittaung valleys, from 17°20′ to 20° N (the extent the Imperial Gazetteer gives for the chain), about 12,600 km². It is approximate.
The eastern limit follows the floor of the Sittaung valley, so that the Karen hills east of the river, a separate range, stay outside. The 120 m floor keeps the valley towns (Toungoo, Pyinmana, Pyay, Tharrawaddy, Bago, Phyu) outside.
Where the range's western and northern slopes fall inside the border of the Dry Zone region (Magway and Mandalay regions), they are left to that region.
Most of the proxy lies in Bago Region; its northern end lies in Naypyidaw Union Territory, and a small part of the southern edge in Yangon Region.
The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Sources

Read for this page, in text copies at the Internet Archive unless stated: the Hemp Drugs Commission's report, vol. I (ch. XVI) and the Burma evidence in vol. VII, with the printed questions (witnesses 3, 8 and 16 are used; the Deputy Commissioner of Tharrawaddy, A. M. B. Irwin, witness 9, knew of no district where the plant grew spontaneously and gave no evidence on cultivation, and the District Superintendents of Police of Toungoo, Shwegyin, Prome and Tharrawaddy answered only the questions on crime); the Report on the Police Administration of Burma for 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1916, 1918 and 1920; the Report on the Administration of Burma for 1891–92 to 1894–95, 1901–02 to 1926–27 and 1928–29 to 1935–36; the Burma Gazetteer volumes A for Toungoo (1914, two scans), Tharrawaddy (1920), Pegu (1917), Yamethin (1934), Thayetmyo (1911), Insein, Hanthawaddy, Henzada, Bassein (1916) and Pakokku (1913); the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908), Provincial Series, Burma, vols I and II, and the entries "Pegu Yoma" (vol. XX, pp. 99–100) and "Toungoo District" (vol. XXIII, p. 431) on the page images at the Digital South Asia Library; the Census Report of British Burma (1881); United States embassy cables of 1973 to 1977 on narcotics in Burma; JPRS and FBIS translations of the Burmese press, 1979 and 1990; Myanmar's report to the United Nations (1998); the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control's annual report for 2020.

The 1881 census mentions "Karens of the Pegu Yoma" and ganja only in unrelated passages. The 1925–26 report's seizures "including" something "of the hemp plant" (the word is illegible in the text copy) and the 1926–27 report's "destruction of cultivation in the previous year" name no place and are not used.

Not read, because no copy could be opened: the Report on the Administration of Burma for 1927–28 and 1936–37 onwards; the volumes A of the Prome and Magwe gazetteers; the Burmese newspapers of November 1975 behind the embassy cables; the books of Bertil Lintner and Martin Smith on the insurgencies in the range; the Global New Light of Myanmar and The Irrawaddy archives since 2000.