Kola nut: so much more than just a nut

Abstract

Day after day, month after month, the labourers, sweating from the heat, tired from their grueling, monotonous work and hungry from not having eaten enough, chew on pieces of bitter, astringent kola nuts.Kola helps get them through their day in this small Gambian forest on the edge of West Africa.Sometimes they bring the nuts to work with them.Sometimes a local woman comes and sells them nuts while they sit in the shade of a large mampato tree.However they get them, they always have them.Outside the forest on the bantaba, a raised platform made from wooden planks, the village men often sit chewing pieces of kola nuts while they exchange gossip, argue over football scores and discuss politics -both national and familial -while swatting away the ever-present mosquitoes and tsetse flies.The women, with infants strapped to their backs and heavy loads piled on their heads, put down their bundles and buckets and rest for a bit, but only a bit.Like the kola-chewing men, they too take part in this shared masticatory activity.Sitting on the veranda of his house, a village elder accepts a kola nut from a local farmer who wants his approval on a financial dispute he is having with a neighbour.An office worker having problems with his boss decides to visit a marabout, a combination of priest, sage, mystic, prophet and healer, for a 'special juju to make his boss stop giving him a hard time'.Carrying a chicken and some kola nuts as offerings, he goes to seek advice and help.A used-to-be-animist, now-Christian, says he has no need for stick Gods and jujus.He says 'My church is my juju, but if I want to have especially good luck I will bring a kola nut to a fair-coloured old man or old woman who will say many ''Amens'' for me and I will get my luck'.Kola is prized throughout West Africa by the poor and the affluent; by men and women; by Muslims, Christians and animists.It is a shared experience, a powerful cultural symbol.It is given to show respect and as a sacred offering.It is a crucial part of !