Coconut

The coconut is the fruit of a tall, slender palm, the one living species of its genus, which can reach some thirty metres under a crown of long feathery leaves. Its first home was South-east Asia, New Guinea and the south-western Pacific; Austronesian seafarers domesticated it and carried it on their ocean voyages, and it now grows along tropical coasts almost everywhere. As the fruit ripens it browns and builds a thick fibrous husk around a hard shell, inside which lie the flesh and a store of liquid. Nearly every part is used: the flesh for food, oil and milk, the shell for charcoal, the husk for coir. The name goes back to a Portuguese word for a grimacing face or goblin, suggested by the three dents that give the shell a face. In Hindu worship a coconut is offered to the gods and broken at the outset of a new undertaking, and Lakshmi is often pictured holding one; Kynes records it broken in place of a sacrifice to Kali and offered to Ganesh. In Malaysia a nut without its three eyes was kept as a charm against enemies. In magic it serves purification, protection and chastity: a halved coconut, drained and packed with protective herbs, is sealed and buried to guard a property, and a whole one hung indoors protects the household.