Subterfuge in the Domestication of the Date Palm (Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria)

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 21^st-23^rd, 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.