History of the Gourd
Wow! Researching the history of gourds was awesome, I discovered so much. I didn’t want to write a big long extensive article about them so I have a brief rundown.
Gourds are in the Cucurbit family of plants, closely related to the pumpkin and cucumber.
Gourds most likely would have been discovered by women while they gathered food. Finding such a plant would have been like a gift from the heavens. It developed into the most versatile plant with endless uses and became part of everyday life. They played a major role in the development of human kind.
They come in an amazing range of shapes and sizes. They are classified into soft shell or hard shell.
After harvesting they are left to dry. Mould grows on the outside and aids the drying process. They have been used by cultures worldwide. Their buoyancy came in handy for fishing nets and water wings. Gourds are used as ceremonial musical instruments worldwide, food and liquid vessels, stamps for printing material, clothing, smoking pipes, hats, boats, water drums, baby cots, even whistles strapped to the backs of birds to identify them as they flew.
Many cultures tell legends about gourds. They were a symbol of the beginning of life. The bottom of the gourd represents the earth. When the top of the gourd was opened the heavens were released and so the earth was created.
Gourds were used for everything imaginable:
· Bowls and eating utensils, ladles, water dippers
· Water, wine and oil containers, canteens, baby bottles, prayer sticks
· Ceremonial masks, musical instruments
· A place to store and preserve eggs
· Snuff bottles, ink wells
· Soaked gourds seeds were used as a poultice of for boils, and the crushed leaves of the gourd plant were applied to the forehead for headaches
· Burnt seeds were used to smoke the body for insanity
· Fire carrier: embers were placed in a gourd and it would smoulder till they made it to the next camp site
· Bird houses were used in villages as an alarm system as the birds would be alerted
· Gourds were so important to people they were one of the first currencies
The Chinese word for gourd, Hulu, means happiness or good fortune. Chinese people consider the number 8to be very auspicious and an omen for good luck. Hulu is also known as the giver of life and its shape symbolizes the earth and heaven united together. If you had three gourds in your house you were considered to be very wealthy.
The Choctwq and Chickasaw tribes were the first to use gourd shells on their heads for certain effigies.
Following the Drinking Gourd is an African American folk song first published in 1928.The drinking gourd is another name for the big dipper. Folklore has it that slaves in the United States used it as a point of reference in the night sky so they would not get lost as they escaped from slavery.
At an early Archaic site found in 1982 in Brevard County near Titusville Windover a muck pond where skeletal remains of 168 individuals were found buried in the peat at the bottom of a pond. Radiocarbon dating yielded a date of 7,210 years ago. It was a burial ground of native Indians. Bodies were wrapped in cloth, and they found gourds buried with them.
4,000 year old gourds were found in Peru in an archaeological dig.
Reference: Mindy Hawkins Combined Circles: The Art and History of Gourds