“Often said by those seeking strong medicinal herbs. A plant that stood by itself was considered better for medicine than one that grew close to others of its kind.”
Pukui, M.K. (2008). ‘Ōlelo No‘eau. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press
The image is the the official plant of Hawai‘i, the kukui or Aleurites moluccana, the Candlenut. Every part of the kukui can be used.
Several parts of the plant have been used in traditional medicine in most of the areas where it is native. The oil is a laxative and sometimes used like castor oil. Candlenut oil is also used as a hair stimulant or additive to hair treatment systems. In Japan its bark has been used on tumors. In Sumatra, pounded seeds, burned with charcoal, are applied around the navel for constipation. In Malaya, the pulped kernels or boiled leaves are used in poultices for headache, fevers, ulcers, swollen joints, and gonorrhea. In Java, the bark is used for bloody diarrhea or dysentery.
In Hawaiʻi, the flowers and the sap at the top of the husk (when just removed from the branch) were used to treat eʻa (oral candidiasis) in children. In Ancient Hawaiʻi, kukui nuts were burned to provide light. The nuts were strung in a row on a palm leaf midrib, lit one end, and burned one by one every 15 minutes or so. This led to their use as a measure of time. One could instruct someone to return home before the second nut burned out. Hawaiians also extracted the oil from the nut and burned it in a stone oil lamp called a kukui hele po (light, darkness goes) with a wick made of kapa cloth.
Aleurites moluccana flowers
Hawaiians also had many other uses for the tree, including: leis from the shells, leaves and flowers; ink for tattoos from charred nuts; a varnish with the oil; and fishermen would chew the nuts and spit them on the water to break the surface tension and remove reflections, giving them greater underwater visibility. A red-brown dye made from the inner bark was used on kapa and aho (Touchardia latifolia cordage). A coating of kukui oil helped preserve ʻupena (fishing nets). The nohona waʻa (seats), pale (gunwales) of waʻa (outrigger canoes) were made from the wood. The trunk was sometimes used to make smaller canoes used for fishing. Kukui also represents the island of Molokaʻi, whose symbolic color is the silvery green of its leaf.
Wikipedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment