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Subterfuge in the Domestication of the Date Palm (Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria)
Original title:
Le subterfuge dans la domestication du palmier-dattier (Tassili n’Ajjer), Lecture given at the Conference Animal Domestications: social and symbolic dimensions (Domestications animales: dimensions sociales et symboliques, Hommage à Jacques Cauvin), VIIth colloque international de l’association “L’Homme et l’Animal” (Hasri) with the collaboration of the Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen-Jean Pouilloux (FR 538 CNRS – Université Lumière Lyon 2), November 21st-23rd, 2002, Villeurbanne (Lyon, France).
Abstract:
The Kel Ajjer Touaregs of Djanet cultivate date palms in their oasis grove as practised elsewhere in the Sahara, but with one difference: subterfuge. This is not simple plant domestication in which humans deal with insensitive biological material shaped by generations of oasis dwellers, but a kind of interaction as in animal domestication; people use subterfuge so as not to clash with the temperament of the species, which shuns the sui generis smell of humans.
Access to the conference documents on the web site of the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée [pdf in French].
Read the published version: an article for the Anthropozoologica journal.
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