Coconut: Miracle tree

When my freshman students read Antonio Pigafetta’s account of the Magellan expedition in the Philippines, many are surprised that Magellan was killed by a group of angry Mactan warriors. Some ask, “Where was Lapulapu?” Returning to the primary source teaches them that Magellan did not lose a one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat with the Lord of Mactan. It is a simple lesson in validating what we think we know.

Many students ask: Why did Pigafetta waste many words in his journal with a long and boring description of the coconut? Weren’t there more engaging things to write home about? Pigafetta described the coconut as a wonder plant whose fruit provided water, milk, and meat. Its trunk is used for house posts, its leaves for roofing, mats, and even clothing. Almost as miraculous as Jesus turning water into wine, fermented coconut water became vinegar, its sweet sap became “tuba” that Pigafetta drank till he was drunk and merry. Reading Pigafetta is an exercise in context. A 16th-century European had experienced the coconut for the first time and had to describe it to people who had never seen it. To him, bananas were oversized figs.

One hundred fifty-four years after Magellan’s death in Mactan, Augustinian botanist Fr. Ignacio de Mercado was scribbling away in San Agustin, Intramuros. Like Pigafetta, he had a lot to say on coco or “niog.” He noted that dried coconut yields water with a disagreeable taste, like vinegar at times, and when this water is condensed, it forms an edible flesh, the size of an apple, called macapuno in Tagalog. When the meat of the coconut was sun-dried, it yielded the best fragrant vinegar, also a sweet treat called latik. From the stem or stalk or its flowers is sourced a very pleasant and gifted wine tuba that could refresh or cool the liver. The tuba was so good, the Dutch brought it home as pasalubong.

He documented the utilitarian uses of the coconut. Before electricity and candles, people used coconut oil lamps to light their homes. On the road, 17th-century Pinoys lit their paths with “oyo,” a torch fashioned from dried coconut stalks, or “cayacas,” made from dried coconut leaves. These torches burned well and long, casting light on darkness. With the prospect of a fuel crisis, we can consider a return to the coconut.

Those who have eaten ice cream or halo-halo from the inside of a coconut shell know, like Father Ignacio, that coconut can be made into vessels and spoons, with its wood made into “very curious rosaries.” The burned shell made for an excellent carbon, useful to silversmiths whose work required fire with high and constant heat. The outside skin of its bark, two fingers thick when dried and crushed, can be made into ropes and cables, even fuses for muskets (arcabuz). Other byproducts were oakum for caulking ships. From its burned ash, you could make lye and gunpowder.

He claimed fresh green leaves of coconut could have served as paper in pre-Spanish times. You incised letters into the leaves with no need for ink, and the text was visible for many days after. Coconut leaves also serve as plates, table covers, and even salt cellars by being folded into “petaquillas” (small boxes) or “petacas” (wallets) for salt or buyo. Among all the trees, coconut leaves are worthy for use and blessing as palms for Palm Sunday.

Father Ignacio also described the way Pinoys climb coconut trees to this day. By cutting notches into the trunk at intervals, producing “stairs that allow indios to climb up or harvest the nuts.” Tree trunks became pillars or posts (harigue from haligi) in their homes that lasted over two years. Coconut oil was prescribed as a laxative long before virgin coconut oil became popular as a cure-all. Dosage was 2 ounces taken before dawn. Another purgative was gata or coconut milk mixed with dilao (turmeric). Dried coconuts roasted over a slow fire; when cooled, they were set out in the night air. At dawn, the water was administered on an empty stomach as a remedy for fever. It was restorative, purged bad humors, and soothed irritation of the urinary tract and overheated kidneys.

Whenever I travel outside Manila, I visit local markets and get upset to find stalls filled with imported fruits instead of fruits from childhood summers: duhat, kamias, balimbing, aratiles, and makopa, not found in the urban supermarket. In Laguna, some weeks ago, I saw a lot of “paho” miniature green mangoes. Vendors couldn’t tell me how these were served or eaten; my answer lay in a 17th-century work. Paho was preserved or pickled: wrapped with mustasa, ginger, garlic, salt, oil, and vinegar, then these were stored in earthenware jars or tinajas. I guess it could be a substitute for the Spanish pickled olives. Paho could be made into a very good jam that was restorative to the sick. The stone or seed of the paho was not thrown away or planted because inside its hard exterior was a very white pith or core, good against diarrhea, even if it is fulminant dysentery.

See Also

Libreng Sakay Program should be nationwide, not optional

I have been reading 17th-century botanical texts for the past two weeks. Beyond the obsolete pharmacology, these are overlooked primary sources that made me know I won’t survive life three centuries ago.

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Comments are welcome at ambeth.ocampo@inquirer.net