The
Polynesian chestnut tree
“Te mape” (Polynesian
chestnut) is one of the most amazing of all trees filling the forests of
Polynesia.
Walking
through the wetlands of the high islands, the favorite places of this tree, who
isn’t marveled at its majestic dimensions and convolutions as strange as
beautiful of its trunk?
But beyond
its undeniable beauty, this Tahitian chestnut was, and still is, a main and natural
wealth of the Polynesian islands. Discover.
“Te mape”, the strange Lord
of our forests
If, we
inventory ten Tahitian chestnut varieties in French Polynesia, two of them
dominate: mape and mape piropiro. The inocarpus fagifer - its scientific name - or mape in tahitian, is native to Southeast Asia. It probably reached the
Polynesian islands with the first migrations of peopling at the beginning of
the Christian era. Polynesians, peerless mariners but also excellent
horticulturist, used to carry with them many plants for growing at their endpoint.
Whereas hymenaea courbaril or mape piropiro native to Amazonia, was
introduced much later in Polynesia.
 |
| The forest of mape at the botanical garden of Tahitii |
Flourishing chiefly
near streams and in the bottoms of valleys growing in clusters, the mape has remarkable features. It’s one
of the few trees in the rainforest which has a smooth and clean trunk whose
bark is mildew-free. Over the first seven to eight years of growth, it stands
straight and smooth, without any bump on its trunk producing white coarse
texture wood.
Its twigs, tidy,
mainly use to palings and tool handles (axes, picks, etc.). For the rest, its
wood is particularly suited to the manufacture of charcoal which was its head aim.
When we practice
an incision on a young mape trunk, a first colorless sap runs. Air drying it turns
beautiful ruby-red, blood color reminiscent. Oldest trees juice is tinted and
when we hurt we almost see the blood spurting out of a human body. For this
reason this liquid is called "Toto
Mape" (mape blood).
At the base
of the tree a sticky orange resin turns into amber through a chemical process
that has been going on for millions of years.
At eight or
nine years old, the mape underwent a
major transformation: around its trunk, thus right and smooth, irregular outcrops
from the branches to the roots join by place form recesses in others. These
outcrops are shifting, in turn, year after year, divide and merge, sparing
spaces with strange arches in the wood. Gradually, the buttresses can recede
several meters away from the trunk entwine around it, sometimes to more than
two meters high. When the tree is near the water, these protrusions may extend
to the bed of the river and on land, form natural shelters used by goats and
wild pigs.
Old mape are
covered with bumps and bulges on which are wrapped bird-nest ferns (asplenium nidus), gracious epiphytes
hanging like ribbons, or even araifaa
or mave, another variety of
epiphytes, hung in long clusters with small red berries.
 |
Slender and ahead, the mape standing in water
|
In June and
July, the ends of the branches are overlaid by amber leaves that become creamy
white before moving gradually to dark green. Therefore the trees are enfolded in
August and September, small white flowers fluffy bunches with very pleasant
fragrance, sharp sweet, lacing the undergrowth.
After the
flower, the fruit springs naturally. When ripe, called mape pa'ari, it can be yellow, brown or light green. Tasty and very
nutritious fruit it may be eaten either braised or steamed. Polynesians, who
like its undeniably hot chestnut flavor, used to eat it as a sweetmeat. Today,
it is sold burning on roadside. We noted that if the fruit of mape piropiro is also edible and tasty,
its nauseating smell made it heir of this name of piropiro, meaning "stinky" in Tahitian. When the ripe
fruit falls from the tree then, called mami,
it is sturdier than when we pick it on the tree for consumption. On the ground,
the skin dries out and the fruit begins to germinate, so its name ro'a. At both stages of its evolution,
properly cooked, the mape is still
good to eat if it has been properly roasted.
The “mape” and traditional
uses
Large flat
surfaces linking buttresses to the trunk played a foremost role in the Polynesian
people’s history. Drumming them with a stick of hard wood or a stone, we obtain
a modular percussion sound that carries far into the forest and to the sea. It
allowed them to communicate from valley to valley and transmit urgent
information. For example warn of an attack by a neighboring tribe. Perhaps it’s
just the forebear of Polynesian percussions.
The best
known medicinal utilization from mape
is a ra'au Tahiti (traditional remedy)
for curing the fish bite and fighting the inflammation that results. The nohu (or stone fish) sting is extremely
painful and dreadful. In this case, the juice of the green fruit of mape is mixed with the sap of atae bark (erythrina indica) by chewing.
The resulting paste is applied as a poultice on the bite and the inflammation quickly
disappears.
 |
| Fabulous strolls of mape roots |
In
traditional society, the mape was
used as a natural dye. It’s possible to obtain the following colors: black,
blue, dark green, light green, dark purple, purple violet, purple carmine, red
brown. These dyes were used in the decoration of tapa, clothing and some ritual
objects.
The “mape” and the legend
In
traditional Polynesian culture, the mape
was portrayed as follows: all mape
stem from humans. The fruits come from human kidneys, organs also called mape or rata. The amazing red sap is the blood. Nose and nostrils,
meanwhile, find themselves in the strange contortions of the trunk.
In 1840, the
high priests Tamera and Mo'a transmitted their vision of mape: "It is the Tree. The piping plover and the bird of the paradise
will nest in its twigs and feed on its flowers along the river.”
Here is what
is told on the lands of Paea (west coast of Tahiti): Aiti tane, from the
district of Mata'oae was clear-sighted. One day he wondered a mape at the bottom of a valley, he
exclaimed: "Aue tera vahine i te aroha e!" (How pitiful is this
woman!). Seeing no one close to the tree, his friends asked him what he meant
and he replied: "In the hollow of this tree I see a woman crying, holding
twins in her arms!" Shortly after, returning to the village, they heard
that a woman of the district had just died giving birth to stillborn twins.
They concluded what Aiti saw this woman lamenting the premature death of her
children.
An article
of Julien Gué
Translated from French by Vanaa Teriitehau
Copyright Julien Gué. Ask for the authorization of the author before any reproduction of the text or the images on the Internet or in the traditional press.
