Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 273
young men (Plate 58e) to demonstrate their keeness to start the process of adult initiation (see
Chapter 3.14).
We see three palm trees in Plate 18a above, but they are equally often single trees. We show
next to it (Plate 18b) the fibre that was gained from its bark, by hammering with a wooden
tool until it released the typical structure in our image. The single strings show the parallel
fibres at the ends of the outer rim of the trunk, and they could serve to make items like fly
flaps and also to make a very fine rope which was used to bind the fly flaps together. There
were surely many other purposes of which we know nothing. The importance of the fan palm
is manifold, and I remember being told that one modern use was to make the trunks into
timber frames to carry the new roofs of zinc.
Plate 18e: Haruna prunes my mahogany tree
Plate 18f: Man harvesting from his tree
We do not know whether this led to more fan palms being felled and neither do we know
whether the wa'iya tree (Plate 18d), which was once so important for roofing, had lost its
main function, or whether it was now used to meet other needs such as that of firewood.
We see above in Plate
18e, how the fruits of
the mahogany tree
next to my research
station had not been
harvested for a very
long time. I only
found this out when I
expressed a wish to
make mahogany oil.
My friend Haruna
Zakariya, John's older
brother, volunteered
to prune it, and we
see in the photograph that he got out his ladder to mount the tree. It had to be done in two
subsequent years so as to not injure the tree, after which it was full of fruit again. Mahogany
Plate 18g: Old man is moving a dried-out tree branch
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