What is a baobab?

What is a Baobab?

“What’s a BAOBAB?”

“How do you pronounce it?”

“Why is it called ‘The Baobab Way?’”

These are some of the questions I have been asked again and again of late. So I thought it is time to spill the beans on the baobab.

First things first, let’s look at the pronunciation:

It is simple really: ‘Bay-oh-bab.’

BAY, as in ‘bay’ window; ‘OH’ as in ‘Oh, that’s easy!’ and ‘BAB’ as in ‘Fab! I get it! 😀 ’

Admittedly, ‘fab’ is slang for ‘fabulous’, but it works, right?

So it is pretty easy when you break it down: BAY-OH-BAB and you spell it BAOBAB.

What is a baobab?

The Baobab is a magnificent tree. It is a HUGE tree with an enormous, sturdy trunk and branches that look like its roots sticking up in the air. Which is why it is also called the ‘upside-down tree.’

Baobabs occur naturally in the southern hemisphere: Australia, Asia, Madagascar and Africa. The species prevalent in Africa is Adansonia Digitata. No matter where the baobab grows, it is a metaphor for life and is also called The Tree of Life. It integrates into nature and its environment, providing shelter and safety for both animals and humans.

The Baobab is renowned for regenerating itself. There are baobabs in Africa that to this day, still have spears stuck in their trunks where they were lodged during tribal wars a long time ago. The baobab simply grows over it, around it, and continues to integrate with the environment.

Baobabs have massive trunks which can hold up to 32 000 gallons of water to help them cope with seasonal droughts.

Ancient

Baobabs grow very old. Their age has to be determined by carbon dating because the fibrous trunk does not have growth rings; so dating by dendro-chronology is not an option.

The oldest tree is reputed to be over 6 000 years old. The South African botanist Hugh Glen jokes that a baobab only grows handsome once it is 800 years old. As it grows older, hollows form inside the trunk. The trunk of one particular tree in South Africa is so enormous, the owners of the farm where it grows created a bar inside the hollows and managed to get more than 50 of their friends inside this bar, inside the tree! Google ‘Get drunk in a trunk’ and read all about it.

Super-Food

The fruit of the baobab is highly nutritious. It is reputed to have more than 10 times the antioxidant level of oranges, 6 times more vitamin C and more than twice the calcium level of milk.

The soluble fibre in the fruit pulp has pre-biotic qualities which stimulate the growth of good bacteria in the gut. It is high in potassium, which is important for brain, nerve and muscle function. It simply is a powerhouse of minerals and its super-food qualities do not end there.

The leaves can be used as a vegetable like spinach. Dried leaves, bark and powder are used for medicinal purposes and the fibre from the trunk is used to weave hats, handbags, or make rope.

The French explorer and botanist, Michel Adanson (1727-1806) who discovered the baobab concluded that of all the trees he studied, the Baobab “is probably the most useful tree in all.”

Otherworldly

Baobabs are revered for their otherworldly qualities.

In many African traditions, burial rites were performed under a baobab. Such a tree would be revered as the spiritual home of the ancestors. There are customs where people were buried in the hollows of a baobab. In some cultures, the tree, its fruit and or bark play an important part in rainmaking ceremonies, the initiation rites of young men and women, festivals, sacrifices and worship.

In Madagascar, there is a giant baobab, home to the spirits of the dead, where the indigenous people got to place offerings around its base as part of a ceremony to ask the ancestors to bring them luck. The spirit baobab is surrounded by one of the best pieces of dry forest in Madagascar and remains intact because of the belief that the spirits will only remain there as long as the forest surrounds the tree.