[African climbing palm tree] [graphic].
Title
[African climbing palm tree]
Description
Included in Chapter III, the engraving accompanies Winterbottom's discussion of the uses of the palm tree in Sierra Leone. Using an elliptical hoop, a man climbs a palm tree to procure wine. On the ground, another man points at him, and a mother walks with two small children. "To procure the palm wine," Winterbottom explained, "requires no small degree of agility and address." Describing this process in detail, he wrote, "As the trunk of the tree is too rough to allow the hands and knees to be applied in climbing to its summit, the natives use a kind of hoop of an elliptical form, made of bamboo, and open at one side. The person about to ascend, first passes the hoop round the stem of the tree, including himself also, he then fastens the hoop by twisting its two ends into a kind of knot. The hands are applied to the sides of the hoop, while the feet are firmly pressed against the tree, and the lower part of the back supported by the opposite end of the hoop. In order to advance, the person thus prepared draws his body a little forwards, keeping his feet steady, and at the same moment slips the hoop a little higher up the tree, after which he advances a step or two with his feet. In this manner he alternately raises the hoop and his feet, and thus advancing, he gains at length the upper part of the stem, just below where the branches are thrown off. Here, at the height of 50 or 60 feet, with no other support than the pressure of his feet against the tree, and of his back against the hoop, he sits with perfect composure. In a small bag hung round his neck or arm he carries an anger to bore the tree, and a gourd or calibash to receive the wine. A hole is bored, about half an inch deep, below the crown of the tree, and into this is inserted a leaf rolled up like a funnel, the other end of it being put into the mouth of a calibash capable of containing several quarts, which is filled in the course of a single night. . . . When the palm wine has been drawn off, the hole is carefully filled up with mud, to prevent insects from depositing their eggs in it, the larvae of which would destroy the tree." (p. 61-62), Plate in Thomas Winterbottom's An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighborhood of Sierra Leone; to which is Added, an Account of the Present State of Medicine Among Them (London: Printed by C. Whittingham, Dean Street; and sold by John Hatchard, 199, Piccadilly, and J. Mawman, Poultry, 1803), vol. 1, p. 60., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography
Date
1803
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afr Winte 3027.O v 1 p 60, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2937