"The coconut was the milk bottle on the doorstep of mankind"
Hugh C. Harries 1979 - Principes 23, 143-148

"The coconut palm rates higher than the family cow to one third of the world's population".
Vegetarians in Paradise

Introduction to the West:

Antonio Pigafetta, a nobleman from Venice, decided to explore the world as a tourist. He boarded one of Magellan's five ships and kept a daily journal of his captain's effort to find a western route to the Spice Islands. Pigafetta wrote, after their first landing in the Philippines in 1521:

"Coconuts are the fruit of the palm trees. And as we have bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, so they get all these things from the said trees. . . With two of these palm trees a whole family of ten can sustain itself. . . They last for a hundred years."

See also Wild Coconuts

Coconut Origins - now has its own web page 

Coconut Uses

Coconut is one of the ten most useful trees in the world, providing food for millions of people, especially in the tropics. At any one time a coconut palm has 12 different crops of nuts on it, from opening flower to ripe nut. Growing Tip:  At the top of the tree is the growing point, a bundle of tightly packed, yellow-white, cabbage-like leaves, which, if damaged, causes entire tree to die, but if tree can be spared, this heart makes a tasty treat, a 'millionaire's salad'.    Coconut flowers Mananggutay collecting tuba Flowers: are protected by a sheath, often used to fashion shoes, caps, even a kind of pressed helmet for soldiers. Opened flowers provide a good honey for bees. A clump of unopened flowers may be bound tightly together, bent over and its tip bruised. Soon it begins to 'weep' a steady dripping of sweet juice, up to a gallon per day. It contains 16-30 mg ascorbic acid/100 g. The cloudy brown liquid is easily boiled down to syrup, called coconut molasses, then crystallized into a rich dark sugar, almost exactly like maple sugar. Sometimes it is mixed with grated coconut for candy.  Left standing, it ferments quickly into a beer with alcohol content up to 8%, called 'toddy' in India and Sri Lanka; 'tuba' in Philippines and Mexico; and 'tuwak' in Indonesia. After a few weeks, it becomes a vinegar. 'Arrack' is the product after distilling fermented 'toddy' and is a common spirituous liquor consumed in the East.  Husk: a mass of packed fibers called coir, which can be woven into strong twine or rope, and is used for padding mattresses, upholstery and life-preservers. Fiber resistant to sea water and is used for cables and rigging on ships, for making mats, rugs, bags, brooms, brushes, and olive oil filters in Italy and Greece; also used for fires and mosquito smudges.  Buwa (germinating plant) in a sprouting coconut If nut is allowed to germinate, the cavity fills with a spongy mass (Buwa - 'bubble') which is eaten raw or toasted in shell over fire. It tastes like a mixture of meringue and good bread, coconut-flavoured. Sprouting seeds may be eaten like celery. (I ate the shoot from the picture on the left - it did indeed taste like celery - RP ) Shell: hard and fine-grained, and may be carved into all kinds of objects, as drinking cups, dippers, scoops, smoking pipe bowls, and collecting cups for rubber latex.  Charcoal: used for cooking fires, air filters, in gas masks, submarines, and cigarette tips.  (I use it to filter pa-oroi, a local moonshine liquor made from nipa palm nuts - RP).  Shells burned as fuel for copra kilns or house fires.  Coconut shell flour used in industry as filler in plastics.  Coconut water is produced by a 5 month old nut, about 2 cups of crystal clear, cool sweet (invert sugars and sucrose) liquid, so pure and sterile that during World War II, it was used in emergencies instead of sterile glucose solution, and put directly into a patient's veins. Also contains growth substances, minerals, and vitamins.  Boiled toddy, known as jaggery, with lime makes a good cement.    Coconut Meat: from immature coconuts is like a custard in flavor and consistency, and is eaten or scraped and squeezed through cloth to yield a 'cream' or 'milk' used on various foods. Cooked with rice to make Panama's famous 'arroz con coco'; also cooked with taro leaves or game, and used in coffee as cream. Dried, desiccated, and shredded it is used in cakes, pies, candies, and in curries and sweets.  Rhon chopping coconut Extracting copra from the shell Copra out to sun-dry on a tapahan Coconut Oil: When nuts are cut open and dried, the meat becomes copra, which is processed for oil, rich in glycerine and used to make soaps, shampoos, shaving creams, toothpaste lotions, lubricants, hydraulic fluid, paints, synthetic rubber, plastics, margarine, and in ice cream.  In India, the Hindus make a vegetarian butter called 'ghee' from coconut oil; also used in infant formulas. When copra is heated, the clear oil separates out easily, and is made this way for home use in producing countries. Used in lamps.  Cake residue used as cattle fodder, as it is rich in proteins and sugar; should not give more than 4-5 lbs/animal/day, as butter from milk will have a tallow flavor. As cake is deficient in calcium, it should be fed together with calcium rich foods.  Trunk wood:  used for building sheds and other semi-permanent buildings. Outer wood is close-grained, hard, and heavy, and when well seasoned, has an attractive dark colored grain adaptable for carving, especially ornamentals under the name of 'porcupine wood'. Coconut logs should not be used for fences, as decayed wood makes favorable breeding places for beetles. Logs are used to make rafts. Sections of stem, after scooping out pith, are used as flumes or gutters for carrying water.  Cross section Trunk showing leaf scars Pith of stem contains starch which may be extracted and used as flour.  Pith from top of tree is sometimes pickled in coconut vinegar.  Coconut leaves made into thin strips are woven into clothing, furnishings, screens, and walls of temporary buildings. Stiff midribs make cooking skewers, arrows, brooms, brushes, and for fish traps. Leaf fiber used in India to make mats, slippers, and bags. Used to make short-lived torches.  Coconut roots provide a dye, a mouthwash, a medicine for dysentery, and frayed out make a coffee substitute. Believed to be antiblenorrhagic, antibronchitic, febrifugal, and antigingivitic.  Coconut palm is useful as an ornamental; its only drawback being the heavy nuts which may cause injury to man, beast, or rooftop when they hit in falling (Duke, 1972).  Purdue University Back to top

Coconut Chemistry
Per 100 g, the kernel is reported to contain 36.3 g H₂O, 4.5 g protein, 41.6 g fat, 13.0 g total carbohydrate, 3.6 g fiber,  1.0 g ash, 10 mg Ca, 24 mg P, 1.7 mg Fe, and traces of beta-carotene (C.S.I.R., 1948-1976). Per 100 g, the green nut is reported to contain 77-200 calories, 68.0-84.0 g H2O, 1.4- 2.0 g protein, 1.9-17.4 g fat, 4.0-11.7 g total carbohydrate, 0.4-3.7 g fiber, 0.7-0.9 g ash, 11-42 mg Ca, 42-56 mg P, 1.0-1.1 mg Fe, 257 mg K, trace of beta-carotene, 0.4-0.5 mg thiamine, 0.03 mg riboflavin, 0.8 mg niacin, and 6-7 mg ascorbic acid (Food Composition Tables). Coconut oil is one of the least variable among vegetable fats, i.e. 0.2-0.5% caproic-, 5.4-9.5 caprylic-, 4.5-9.7 capric-, 44.1-51.3 lauric-, 13.1-18.5 myristic, 7.5-10.5 palmitic-, 1.0-3.2 stearic-, 0-1.5 arachidic-, 5.0-8.2 oleic-, and 1.0-2.6 linoleic-acids (C.S.I.R., 1948-1976). Following oil extraction from copra, the coconut cake (poonac) contains 10.0-13.3% moisture, 6.0-26.7% oil, 14.3-19.8% protein, 32.8-45.3% carbohydrates, 8.9-12.2% fibers, and 4.0-5.7% ash. The so-called coconut water is 95.5% water, 0.1% protein, <0.1% fat, 0.4% ash, 4.0% carbohydrate. Per 100 g water, there is 105 mg Na, 312 K, 29 Ca, 30 Mg, 0.1 Fe, 0.04 Cu, 37 P, 24 S, and 183 mg choline. Leaves contain 8.45% moisture, 4.282 ash, 0.56% K2O, 0.25 P2O5, 0.28 CaO, and 0.57% MgO. 
Purdue University
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Botanical Description
Palm to 27 m or more tall, bearing crown of large pinnate leaves; trunk stout, 30-45 cm in diameter, straight or slightly curved, rising from a swollen base surrounded by mass of roots; rarely branched, marked with rings of leaf scars; leaves 2-6 m long, pinnatisect, leaflets 0.6-1 m long, narrow, tapering; inflorescence in axil of each leaf as spathe enclosing a spadix 1.3-2 m long, stout, straw or orange colored, simply branched; female flowers numerous, small, sweet-scented, horne towards top of panicle; fruit ovoid, 3-angled, 15-30 cm long, containing single seed; exocarp a thick fibrous, husk, enclosing a hard, bony endocarp or shell. Adhering inside wall of endocarp is testa with thick albuminous endosperm, the coconut meat; embryo below one of the three pores at end of fruit, cavity of endosperm filled in unripe fruit with watery fluid, the coconut water, and only partially filled. when ripe. Fl. and fr. year round in tropics. 
Purdue University
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Germplasm
Reported from the Indochina-Indonesia and Hindustani centers of origin, (sic) coconut has been reported to tolerate high pH, heat, insects, laterites, low pH, poor soil, salt, sand, and slope. Many classifications have been proposed for coconuts, none is wholly satisfactory. Variations are based on height, tall (27 m or so) or dwarf (2 m); color of plant or fruit; size of nut (some palms have very large fruits, others have large numbers of small fruits); shape of nuts, varying from globular to spindle-shaped or with definite triangular sections; thickness of husk or shell; type of inflorescence; and time required to reach maturity. Many botanical varieties and forms have been recognized and named, using some of the characteristics mentioned above. Cultivars have been developed from various areas. Dwarf palms occurring in India are introductions from Malaysia, live about 30-35 years, thrive in rich soils and wet regions, flower and fruit much earlier than tall varieties, and come into bearing by fourth year after planting. However, dwarf varieties are not grown commercially, and only on a limited scale because of their earliness and tender nuts, which yield a fair quantity of coconut water. They are highly susceptible to diseases and are adversely affected by even short periods of drought. Tall coconuts are commonly grown for commercial purposes, 40-90 years, are hardy, and thrive under a variety of soil, climatic, and cultural conditions, begin to flower when about 8-10 years after planting. 2n = 16. 
Purdue University
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Distribution
 
Now pantropical, especially along tropical shorelines, where floating coconuts may volunteer, the coconut's origin is shrouded in mysteries, vigorously debated. According to Purseglove (1968-1972), the center of origin of cocoid palms most closely related to coconut is in northwestern South America. At the time of the discovery of the New World, coconuts (as we know them today) were confined to limited areas on the Pacific coast of Central America, and absent from the Atlantic shores of the Americas and Africa. Coconuts drifted as far north as Norway are still capable of germination. The wide distribution of coconut has no doubt been aided by man and marine currents as well. 
Coconuts get everywhere that humans do

Ecology
Ranging from Subtropical Dry to Wet through Tropical Very Dry to Wet Forest Life Zones, coconut has been reported from stations with an annual precipitation of 7-42 dm (mean of 35 cases = 20.5), annual temperature of 21-30°C (mean of 35 cases = 25.7°C) with 4-12 consecutive frost free months, each with at least 60 mm rainfall, and pH of 4.3-8.0 (mean of 27 cases = 6.0). 
Purdue University
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Coconuts and Lauric Acid

At one time, coconut and palm fats and oils received negative press because of their high levels of saturated fats. Unlike the long chain triglycerides found in seed oils and hydrogenated coconut fat, medium chain triglycerides featured in unadulterated coconut and coconut milk do not raise serum cholesterol nor contribute to heart disease. Usually coconut oil is highly modified in cosmetics, food products, and animal feeds to prevent rancidity and extend shelf life, but as a result, the lauric acid is converted from a beneficial substance into a probable carcinogen. As a natural biochemical, lauric acid from coconut and palm kernel oils comprises 44 to 53 percent of their total fatty acid contents. Newly genetically engineered laurate canola (rapeseed) oil provides about 36 percent lauric acid, while the milk fat and butter from ruminant animals, such as cows, offers (only) about 3 percent. Synthesized or extracted for the pharmaceutical industry, lauric acid is known for its antimicrobial properties, and as the precursor to monolaurin, a more powerful antimicrobial agent that is able to fight lipid-coated RNA and DNA viruses, several pathogenic Gram-positive bacteria, yeasts, and various pathogenic protozoa.  Most recently, lauric acid derived from coconut oil, and the related monolaurin, have been examined as part of the drug therapy for treating HIV infections by reducing the patient's viral load. However, pure lauric acid cannot be ingested because it is severally irritating, but when lauric acid is chemically bound to glycerol (trade name lauricidin), there are no gastrointestinal problems. Known as dodecanoic acid to a biochemist, lauric acid features 12 carbons, 24 hydrogens, and 2 oxygen atoms, and a molecular weight of 200.32.  Olympus Mic-D Gallery As a solid, lauric acid forms colorless or white needle-like crystals with a faint odor of bay oil, melts at about 44 degrees Celsius, and boils at 225 degrees Celsius. While it is soluble in ether and other organic solvents, lauric acid is insoluble in water. Industrial applications of lauric acid and its derivatives include the fatty acid as a component of alkyd resins, wetting agents, a rubber accelerator and softener, detergents, and insecticides. Jon J. Kabara, Ph.D, Professor Emeritus from Michigan State University, writes, "Never before in the history of man is it so important to emphasize the value of lauric oils. The medium-chain fats in coconut oil are similar to fats in mother's milk and have similar nutriceutical effects". Coconuts and their edible products, such as coconut oil and coconut milk, have suffered from the repeated misinformation because of a study conducted in the 1950's that used hydrogenated coconut oil. Though coconut oil is very high in saturated fat, namely 87 percent saturated, in its unrefined, virgin state, it is actually beneficial, largely because of its high content of lauric acid, almost 50 percent. Because lauric acid has potent anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties, recent studies have considered coconut oil as a possible method of lowering viral levels in HIV-AIDS patients. The lauric acid may also be effective in fighting yeast, fungi, and other viruses such as measles, Herpes simplex, influenza and cytomegalovirus. Because the short-and medium-chain fatty acids of extra virgin coconut oil and coconut milk are easily and quickly assimilated by the body, they are not stored as fat in the body like the long chain triglycerides of animal products. Studies have shown that populations in Polynesia and Sri Lanka, where coconuts are a diet staple, do not suffer from high serum cholesterol or high rates of heart disease.  Vegetarians in Paradise Back to top

The Mythical Origin of the Coconut

"It was the last day of the fast of Lapulapu -- a fast ordered by Bathala through the messenger Liyongin. Gaunt, weary and weak, Lapulapu trekked the trail to Suong where his fast was to end. There, amidst the burning rocks, he wrestled with Impacto from sunup till sundown until Impacto lay dying on the hot rocks. "Lapulapu," Impacto whispered, "bury my dead body in the land of Abuno and when you see a tree spring from my grave, take care of it for such is the tree promised to you by Bathala for the nourishment and improvement of your people. Its juice will be sweet. Its meat will be wholesome. And every part will have its own utility." Lapulapu did as he was told. And shortly after, a straight and palm-like tree emerged and bore fruit. Of course, Lapulapu was the first to taste of its fruit and beheld that it was good. So, when he went on a visit to Dalisay, near the mouth of the Opon river, he brought along a mixture of ripe and unripe fruit. On the slippery Antubong, he slipped and lost consciousness. The ripe fruit were carried by the tide out to the sea. The unripe ones, being heavier, were not carried by the tide and drifted nearby. Lapulapu, when he regained consciousness, was able to retrieve the young fruit but of the ripe ones he could not find a trace. The bunch of ripe fruit found their way to the shores of Talisay. There, a curious man removed the husk from one fruit and exposed the shell of the coconut. When he beheld the similarity of the coconut shell with a human skull, he was seized with fear of being put to death for death was the punishment of those who commit murder. He buried the fruit in the soil near his home and, after time passed, forgot about it. And it was thus that the spread of the coconut to other islands started. NOTES: Bathala was believed to be the supreme being and the creator of the world by pre-Spanish Filipinos who practiced an animo-deist religion. The material from which this story is taken used the name "Bathala" but it's more likely that Lapulapu used the name "Abba" to refer to the same being. "Bathala" is the name used by the Tagalogs while Cebuanos use "Abba". Another name in Visayan is "Gino'o". Modern Filipino Christians translate "God" as "Diyos", which is derived from the Spanish "Dios". "Impakto", means any supernatural creature. Just as there are several kinds (or should I say "species"?) of creatures of the night so are there several kinds of impakto. It is possible that Lapulapu's opponent in the wrestling match was just an unnamed impakto.  "Abuno", means any form of fertilizer. But in the old days, "abuno" refers to soil that can be used as fertilizer. An example would be soil over which birds build their nest. Over time, bird droppings as well as leaves and other organic material would accumulate on the ground and the soil can then be used as fertilizer. It is possible that by the phrase "land of Abuno", Impacto was referring to any land where abuno can be found .  Every part of the coconut is useful. The trunk is used as wood. The leaves are used as roofing material. The husks of the coconut fruit can be used for kindling. The shell, cut in half, can be used as bowls. Of course, the meat is edible while the milk tastes good. Fermented coconut milk is also popular as an alcoholic drink.  "Dalisay means "pure" and "free from foreign matter". "Antubong" is a word whose meaning has eluded me.  Talisay, in modern times, is a town on the island of Cebu. (Cebu is a larger island west of Mactan.) It is quite possible that this was called Talisay in the time of Lapulapu." Mga Awit ng Nakaraan (Songs of the Past) Back to top

 

Are 150 people killed each year by falling coconuts?

"19-Jul-2002   Dear Cecil:

During a recent ABC television report about how infrequent shark attacks really are, we were told, "Each year coconuts falling from trees kill 150 people." That sounded absurd to me. Could it be true? If so, what is the cause of death? --Nicki F.

Dear Nicki:

This has gone on long enough. It's about time somebody spoke up for the coconuts.

For 20 years scientists have been saying you have a better chance of getting killed by a falling coconut than by whatever lethal life form they were getting big bucks to study. In 1984, for example, this column quoted Dr. Merlin Tuttle, curator of mammals at the Milwaukee Public Museum and founder of Bat Conservation International, on the chances of being bitten by a bat versus death due to various misadventures (getting poisoned at a church picnic, murdered by your spouse, or bitten by a rabid dog or cat). Having worked up a head of steam, Dr. Tuttle thundered, "Statistically, you have a better chance in this country of dying from being hit on the head with a coconut than from a bat biting you."

Now scientists are rallying round the misunderstood shark. In late May, George Burgess, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File and a noted shark researcher, was quoted as saying, "Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks."

When I called Burgess, he told me he had gotten this statistic off the Internet--specifically, from a widely reported press release from the British travel-insurance firm Club Direct, saying that "holidaymakers hit by falling coconuts will be guaranteed full cover under their travel insurance policy. The news follows reports from Queensland, Australia, that coconut trees are being uprooted by local councils fearful of being sued for damages by people injured by coconuts. . . . 'Coconuts kill around 150 people worldwide each year, which makes them about ten times more dangerous than sharks,' says Brent Escott, managing director of Club Direct."

So, Brent, do coconuts kill ten times as many people as sharks, or fifteen? No response yet from the UK. However, Club Direct's release also cites an article by Dr. Peter Barss in the Journal of Trauma entitled "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts." (The article received an Ig Nobel Prize, given annually at Harvard by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research in recognition of research that "cannot or should not be replicated." The award was presented in 2001, notwithstanding that the paper had been published in 1984. Apparently news takes a while to filter through to Cambridge.) The article soberly reported on nine injuries in Papua New Guinea due to falling coconuts, none fatal. Barss notes that a coconut palm tree commonly reaches 25 meters in height, that a coconut can weigh two kilograms or more, and that a two-kilogram coconut falling 25 meters would have a velocity of 80 kilometers per hour on impact and a force of as much as 1,000 kilograms. Several victims suffered fractured skulls, were rendered comatose, etc.

OK, getting hit by a coconut is no laughing matter. But nowhere does Barss say that 150 people get killed by coconuts each year. He provides an anecdotal account of one such death and in a separate paper estimates that over a four-year period five deaths in his hospital's service area were related to coconut palm trees (including climbers falling out of them). A recent report (Mulford et al, "Coconut Palm-Related Injuries in the Pacific Islands," ANZ Journal of Surgery, January 2001), which describes itself as "the largest review of coconut-palm related injuries," also reports no deaths and on the question of mortality merely cites Barss. Given that Barss' hospital in Papua New Guinea served a population of 130,000, one conceivably could project 150 deaths over that portion of the world population living in proximity to coconut palm trees, but I'm not aware of any systematic attempt to do so. Noting that death reports in tropical countries are limited, Barss tells me, "I am surprised that someone has come up with an actual number for such injuries. It must be a crude estimate, and you would have to ask them what methodology they used to verify whether it has any validity." Conclusion: Somebody pulled the figure about 150 deaths due to coconuts out of thin air. Take that, shark lovers.

Barss, incidentally, wrote numerous frightening reports while stationed in the tropics. His subjects included injuries by pigs in Papua New Guinea, penetrating wounds caused by needlefish in Oceania, scombroid fish poisoning at Ala Tau, grass-skirt burns, wound necrosis caused by the venom of stingrays, and inhalation hazards of tropical "pea shooters." He's now teaching at United Arab Emirates University, in a desert city built around an ancient date oasis. Can't blame him for making the switch--who ever heard of getting KO'd by a falling date?

--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or comments for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com
No material contained in this site may be republished or reposted without express written permission".
So what will happen to me now? Maybe I'll ask Cecil.

If you've ever had a 1.5kg coconut unexpectedly thump down just beside you from 25 metres up, you'd be inclined to believe that somewhere, among the billion people living amongst them,  perhaps there's more than half a chance that at least 0.0000015% of them might be fatally injured each year.
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Nut net to nix knocks and net notes

"April 24 2003  By Jordan Baker

A Queensland inventor has come up with a way to save coastal dwellers from death or injury by falling coconuts.  Tim Straatmans, from Boyne Island near Gladstone, has developed a metal net, known as a Coconet, which fits on a tree to catch the dropping nuts. They then roll into a basket, which can be lowered at any time.  Many councils are removing coconut palms amid fears that falling nuts could lead to injury and compensation claims. 
Mr Straatmans said he had heard that about 150 people had died from coconuts worldwide. 
"There are quite a number of deaths, there's certainly a lot of injuries, there's certainly a lot of damage to properties," he told ABC radio. Mr Straatmans said he spent four years developing the concept of clipping an upside-down umbrella-like object under the coconuts. 
People had been trying to develop such a contraption for years, but it was more difficult than it looked, he said. It had to be able to withstand strong winds, look good and be transportable and easy to put up. 
Mr Straatmans said there had been interest in his Coconet from Queensland councils and resorts in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. 
The design could be adapted to suit date, olive and pawpaw trees, he said". 
The Age, Australia
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Coconut carries the can
or - how to blame the natives for their exploitation

An article in the Far Eastern Economic Review blames coconut planting for massive deforestation in the Philippines. The writer, quoted below, does not seem to realise that the deforestation was caused by a demand for building materials and firewood. The coconut was planted to replace the forest because, at that time, it provided a reliable source income for the farmer. And the economists at that time were the first to encourage the farmers.

"Coconut exports bring the Philippines lots of foreign exchange, and it is very important to its income. Coconut planting, however, results in massive deforestation, and due to the fact that coconut trees dominate in certain areas, the ecosystem must be changed. "But perhaps the most destructive legacy of the West's demand for coconut oil is the Philippines' poverty and economic underdevelopment." Even if the Philippines has got profits from coconut exports, the profits go to traders and exporters, not a third of the country's population, farmers. Now, "the value of coconut oil has fallen in real terms through the decades, partly as a result of increased production of substitutes such as American and Chinese soybean and cottonseed oil as well as sunflower-seed oil from the former Soviet republics." 
Tigla, R. (1999) Roots of Poverty, Far Eastern Economic Review 162 : 63-65

Tigla concludes that "Even now, the country faces tremendous problems that emerged a century ago, because of the West's cravings for soap and margarine." 
Coconut Timeline

See: Coconut Bank Scam

..at that time..- The quoter of this passage makes the same mistake we all do. Any old ideas, even if only ten years old, are subject to our current 'superior knowledge' - or current fashion. This is rubbish. Our immediate ancestors, and, more so, the older ones, probably had a lot more practical intelligence and knowledge than we do now.

The Philippines were raped and pillaged by the Spanish for 400 years, and by the Americans for only 50 - officially. Even now, in the south of Mindanao, thousands of acres of former rain-forest are being tilled for asparagus and pineapple, fit only for canning, by Dole. The results are so cheap they are given away, free, to Social Security dependents in America's huge cities. The local people are given a patch in a corner of the vast fields, access to a coconut tree to build a hut, and a wage of 50 pesos a day - less than a dollar, to feed their families.
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Word Associations

In Bisayan, the 'mother' language of Siargao, my Philippine island, for all my glottochronological speculations, the word for Coconut tree, or a fruit of such coconut tree, has nothing at all to do with nyiur:

LUBI  n. - coconut

Maybe the other words in my Visayan dictionary (Ben E. Garcia 1990) are related, if, sometimes mutually contradictory - maybe they're not, but together they all suggest coconuts:

lubang n. A variety of rice plant its grain of red color is well-sought by old folks as medicinal.
lub-ang n. A pointed piece of wood or peg used to excavate or harvest root crops or tubers such as cassava or camote or potato roots.
lubas n. Core, center part of a timber, the sturdiest or strongest portion or center portion of a timber.
lubasan adj. sturdy, durable, strong, enduring, lasting.
lubay adj. tender, weak, soft, lacking in strength, lame.
lubaylubay adj. Elastic, flexible, boneless, soft-bodied; tolerant.
lubid n. Tie rope, a string rope of triple strands intertwining into a large rope.
lubid n. A name of certain finger foods; anything produced dry foodstuff by bakers.
lubilubi n. A tropical shrub of long bladed leaves which grow abundantly on sandy loam soil. Such shrub is favorite food for horses.
lubilubi adj. Unassuming, modest, humble, one who isn’t showy.
lublob v. To hibernate, to bury or burrow under the mud.
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