BATS, THE SAUSAGE TREE and BEER

I am going to tell you about a tree that is terrifically important to many African tribes.

Imagine that you are a member of the Ndebele tribe in Zimbabwe but you have disappeared or died in a distant land. Your weeping family would dig a grave for you. In place of your beloved absent body, they would bury a Sausage Tree fruit, which, in their language is an ipfungwani.(1)

THE SAUSAGE TREE FRUIT MUST BE VERY VALUABLE INDEED. WHAT IS THE BAT CONNECTION WITH THIS IMPORTANT TREE?

Straw-coloured fruit bat; Eidolon helvum
Photograph: David Liebman, Lubee Bat Conservancy

Several kinds of African bats pollinate the flowers of the Sausage Tree.(2) The flowers open in the evening and stay open for one night. Their sweet nectar is drunk by bats, baboons, monkeys, sunbirds, herd boys tending lifestock, and other creatures.(1)

Gambian epauletted bat

WHY IS THE TREE CALLED "THE SAUSAGE TREE"?

The fruit looks like a sausage or a cucumber, so in the English language the tree is also known as "The Cucumber Tree". The tree grows widely in Africa. It is known to hundreds of African tribes and has hundreds of different names in different African languages such as mupongopungo in Rotse, and makambakamba in Mbuti or just non in Kweni. One of the African names for the tree translates to "The Fat Tail of a Sheep".(1)

We are talking about enormous sausages, enormous cucumbers and enormous sheep's tails. The Sausage Tree fruit can be up to a metre long (3 feet) and weigh a stone and a half (21 pounds, about 10 kilograms).(3) Do not sit under a Sausage Tree when the ripe fruits are falling!

In l855 the great African explorer, David Livingstone, carved his initials on the bark of a Sausage Tree the night before he saw Victoria Falls for the first time.(3) Considering all the other dangers he had to face, it is a good thing he wasn't injured by a falling Sausage Tree fruit!

WHY IS THE SAUSAGE TREE SO IMPORTANT TO AFRICAN TRIBES?

Because it is a medicine tree, a food tree, a beer tree, a religious, ritual and magic tree, a shade tree, a palaver tree, a dugout canoe tree, an animal fodder tree, an ornamental tree. I could go on and on.(1)

WHAT ILLNESSES DOES SAUSAGE TREE MEDICINE CURE?

Almost any ailment that afflicts human beings. The fruit, bark, leaves and roots are used to treat:(1)

Disorders of the blood system, circulatory system, digestive system, endocrine system, genitourinary system, nervous system, respiratory system, muscular-skeletal and sensory systems.

The fruit, bark, leaves and roots are also used to treat:

Infections, infestations, inflammations, injuries, neoplasms, nutritional and skin disorders, pain, poisoning and disorders accompanying pregnancy and birth.

Peter's dwarf epauletted bat (Micropteropus pusillas)
Sausage tree flower nectar drinker

BEER TREE?

Home-brewed beer has been a very important part of African tribal life for hundreds of years. It can be made from honey or corn or millet. A number of African tribes add cooked Sausage Tree fruit to the fermenting brew.

In African tribal history women have been the beer brewers and men have been the beer drinkers. This arrangement gave women great power in their tribes. What if they refused to brew the beer? The women passed their beer-making knowledge and their tribal power on to their daughters.

Today being a beer-brewer still gives African women power. They can make as much as £20 ($40) from one brewing of beer. This gives them money to buy more grain to make more beer. It gives them money to keep their children in school, to buy clothing and blankets, to improve their homes. It gives them money to start other small businesses by buying and reselling basic foods like sugar and salt.(4)

DUGOUT CANOES?

A Sausage Tree trunk makes good dugout canoe,a mokoro. They are still used by local people for fishing and by fishing camps for tourists. Polers move the canoes and tourists through deltas and lagoons for fishing.

A PALAVER TREE?

Nowadays to "palaver" means to chat. In African history it meant a serious exchange between Africans and traders. The Sausage Tree is a shade tree, so it was a good place to have a "palaver" on a hot day.

Lions and leopards like to hang out in shady Sausage Trees.

Here are a few more interesting facts about the Sausage Tree:(1)

• Sausage Tree fruits are hung in African homes to ward off whirlwinds and to make crops grow well.

• Medicine healers paint Sausage Tree fruits and use them to diagnose the causes of diseases.

• Zulu warriors polish the handles of their spears with Sausage Tree leaves and drink a Sausage Tree fruit mixture to give them strength and courage in battle.

• Squirrels can become tipsy from chewing on the husk of a Sausage Tree fruit.

• You can replace the stones in your fire hearth with Sausage Tree fruits because they are fire-proof.

• You can use hollow Sausage Tree fruits to make dishes, cups, mousetraps and dolls.

• You can learn a LOT more about the many, many uses of the Sausage Tree and 6,199 other plants that are useful to l/6th of the world's population who live on arid and semi-arid rural land in some of the poorest countries in the world. Visit SEPASAL, the Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and Semi-arid Lands, a database created by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet That will take you directly to the database. Be prepared with the Latin family and genus name of the plant you want to look up. Click on "home" to visit the whole site.

References:

(1)Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1999). Survey of Economic Plants for Arid and SemiArid Lands (SEPASAL)database. Published on the Internet;http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/ceb/sepasal/internet/
[accessed 3 March 2006 1000 hours]

(2)Fujita, M.S. 1991. Flying Fox (Chiroptera:Pteropodidae) Pollination, Seed Dispersal, and Economic Importance: A Tabular Summary of Current Knowledge, Resource Publication No. 2, Bat Conservation International

(3)Zambesia Botanica; http://www.classicengland.co.uk/health

(4)Reflective Practice: The Zambia Case Study, The Livingstone Food Security Project, FAO Corporate Document Repository; http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X9371e/X9371e17.htm

Written and illustrated by Mary Louise Alley-Crosby who thanks Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle, Founder and President, Bat Conservation International, Austin, Texas, for permission to use his photographs of the Peter's dwarf epauletted bat and the Gambian epauletted bat as source material and the Lubee Bat Conservancy for permission to use the David Liebman photograph of a straw-coloured flying fox.http://www.lubee.org

Updated October 2006

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