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The Mystery of Maldive Coconut
(Lodoicea maldivica)
By Bluepeace
The natives of the Maldive
islands have heard of the local
name of Maldive coconut, as
Thaavah Kaashi, but mysteriously
many at present are not even
aware of the shape of it. The
local name Thaavah Kaashi has
been in the Dhivehi vocabulary
for centuries and hard shell
of the Maldive coconut is still
used in local medicine for sexual
enhancement purposes.
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Maldive
Coconut (Lodoicea maldivica) |
The Russian author Nikolai
Osipov in 1985, in his article
Sailing Seven Seas: Great Seafarers
stated centuries before in the
Maldive Islands, there was very
strange global trade. The seller
didn’t know exactly what
he was selling, and the buyers
didn’t know really what
they were buying. What was sold
and bought were very strange
gifts of the sea, which the
natives of these islands found
from time to time, washed off
on their beaches or picked up
from the sea. Even the British
Hydrographer of East India Company,
James Horsburgh Esq. had found
them.
According to Nikolai, the islanders
thought they were fruits from
mysterious tree which grew at
the bottom of the sea. It was
even said that the Sea God sent
them as gifts to men, and that
they brought good fortune to
the person who found them. These
islanders boggled the imagination,
because of the humongous size,
almost two feet thickness.
Everyone wanted a share in the
good fortune. But the Sultans
of the islands set up strict
control over the gathering of
the strange fruits. The mysterious
gifts of the sea found themselves
wealthy buyers.
It was believed that there was
a miraculous power in the fruits
that could protect from poisoning.
Many Indian Rajahs, who went
in fear of being poisoned by
their courtiers, ordered their
court masters to make goblets
of the hard shell of the kernel
and drank only from them.
The Sultans of the Maldives
did everything possible to keep
this superstition alive and
sold his merchandise to the
Indian Rajahs at a fabulously
high price- almost the weight
of gold. But as the centuries
passed the miraculous lucky
charm was gradually forgotten.
At that time, the natives of
the Maldive Islands and Indian
Rajahs were only peoples ignorant
of this strange fruit from the
sea. The western botanists were
also mysteriously ignorant of
it, as a matter fact, it was
name as Locoicoa maidivica not
as Locoicoa sechellarum.
According to Orta these were
widely believed to had originally
grown in the Maldive Islands
at a time when they still formed
part of the mainland of India
and, when the palms became very
old, they must had dropped off
and become buried in the earth.
When the land was flooded by
the ocean, the coconuts remained
buried under the water and from
time to time during storms it
would float to surface, usually
joined together in pairs and
natives of the Maldives would
collect them.
However, Dr. Orta provided some
important information on the
use of the Maldive coconut in
the Maldive Islands. According
to him, the natives of the these
islands liked to drink the sweet
juice of these Maldive coconuts
with fish and rice, and the
flesh was believed to provide
a good cure against poison and
“malignant fever”,
as well as cure for a wide variety
of illness, including colic,
paralysis. The shell was commonly
made into goblets engrave gold,
silver and precious stones.
According to Orata, the Queen
of Portugal ordered a quantity
of the nuts to be sent to her
every year, and the Emperor
Rudlf II said to have offered
4,000 forms for a single nut.
Orta further stated that any
person who, finding a sea coconut
on the beaches in the Maldive
Islands, did not immediately
take it to the king was punished
by death.
In fact, these strange gifts
of the sea were so called Maldive
Coconuts or Lodoicoa maidivica.
Locoicoa maidivica is native
to Seychelles in the Indian
Ocean. This fruit is also know
as coco-de mer , Sea coconut
or Double coconut too. There
are no historical or archaeological
evidence saying these coco-de-mer
palms ever grew in the Maldive
Islands, unlike coconut they
do not germinate once tossed
out upon the shore. They are
destroyed by the salt water
with which the sand on the shore
is saturated.
The Seychelles were uninhabited
until fairly recent times only
in the 1770’s. French
planters and their slaves settled
down. However, these islands
were first sighted at the beginning
of the 16th century, by Vasco
da Gama, a Portuguese navigator,
but the Portuguese did not attempt
to settle there.
Long before the Seychelles was
settled, this palm grow on the
coastal areas, where the fruit
that falls from the palm sometimes
float across the Indian Ocean
and were picked up in the Maldivian
waters.
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Coconut Palms which grow in Maldives
are very different from
Lodoicea maldivica |
Maldive coconut, Lodoicea maldivica,
this very large nut looks like
two coconuts joined together,
side by side. Maldive coconut
has been classified very close
to coconut, but is not related
to the coconut. It belongs to
the Borassoid group of palms.
Maldive coconut is the world’s
largest and heaviest seed, a
single seed may be 12 inches
long, nearly three feet in circumference
and weigh 20kg. The Maldive
coconut palms grow only on a
small island named Praslin in
the Seychelles. Plants of these
nuts are tender and very slow-growing,
the nut takes a year to germinate
and another year to form its
first leaf, and it can attain
heights of 100 feet and leaf
blades to 20 feet in length
and 12 feet in diameter. Ripe
interior (endosperm) of coco-de-mer
is normally like jelly, not
firm and white like cocos nucifera
(coconut). Maldive coconut is
also said to be a powerful aphrodisiac
still used in Asian herbal medicine.
In conclusion, even though Lodoicea
maldivica, never existed or
never grew in the Maldive Islands.
It could argue that the Maldives
deserves the first name or surname
of the Lodoicea maldivica for
the historical reasons, namely
peoples of these islands initially
introduced the nut globally
and locally using it in food
and medicine for centuries.
Note: Original
published on Bluepeace
website :http://www.bluepeacemaldives.org |
