Natural Fibres 5: ilavam-panju lamps & pillows

An unplanned 5th installment tacked on to an earlier list of four: banana stem wicks, lotus silk wicks, erukkam fibre cordage and wicks, and now a little play with ilavam panju.

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Tell me this isn’t just the prettiest packaging you’ve ever seen? Brown seed pods from the giant kapok tree near us caught my attention in their last season, by blowing their light white silk cotton all over the garden, and lifting everything into its clouds. This is the famous ilavam panju, lovingly gathered and used by mothers, grandmothers, and other beloved maternal figures to stuff small pillows for beloved little ones, or by mattress makers to fashion bedding (metthais and thalakanis, mattresses and pillows) for courted bigger ones. Special, because they’re naturally hypoallergenic, water-and-mould-resistant, quick drying, and light as air.

The tree from which this ethereal sponge bursts forth is the ilava-maram, which could really be one of two trees, botanically speaking:

• the red silk cotton, Shalmali, semal, Bombax Ceiba (syn. Bombax malabaricum; sometimes called the Malabar silk cotton, Indian kapok or mul ilava maram/ முள் இலவ மரம் on account of its thorny trunk) from the family Bombacaceae, native to India and South East Asia or
• the white silk cotton, Shweta Shalmali or safed shimul, the Mayan kapok, Ceiba pentandra (syn. Lanifera Arbor peregrina [Clusius] and Eriodendron anfractuosum) from the family Malvaceae, whose original range was from northern Latin America through to Mexico and the Caribbean.

The two trees

Both trees bear the common name “ceiba,” and both trees are “kapoks.” And yet the word “kapok” (or capok) itself is Malay-derived and might have referred originally to either Bombax Ceiba or to Ceiba pentandra, or to their seed-pod fibres more precisely, while the Spanish-speaking world from which Ceiba pentandra natively hails knows it as just “ceiba.” Just as simple shorthand, I’ll refer to these as Bombax and Ceiba, respectively, from here on.

The family kapok, it bears mentioning, is a rather large one, consisting of about 22 tropical genera, the largest of which includes (approximately) 60 species of Bombax, 15 of Ceiba (some say 18), 15 of Durio, 10 of Salmalia and 10 of Adansonia (cf. Akhtar and Siddiqui 2019: 744).

It’s unclear how precisely which Ceiba arrived in India, though the tree is naturalized in equatorial Africa, where appears to have arrived from the Neotropics in strong wind or marine currents at least 13,000 years ago [“fossil pollen of Ceiba occurs in 13 000 years old deposits in Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana”] and “Arab trade of a cultivated form of C. pentandra from West Africa dates to the 10th century” (Dick et al., 2007). It has since been “naturalized in all humid tropics after human introduction” (Tareau et al., 2021). It is now well-near globally distributed having not just flanked dispersal barriers like oceans and mountains, but quite exceeded them–thanks to wind, marine currents, human movements, and the plant’s innate capacities for self-fertilization which are higher in the African species compared to South American Ceiba. (Dick et al., 2007).

Both Bombax and Ceiba trees now grow in India, though some are concentrated in some areas more than others. Bombax is especially abundant in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradhesh and Uttar Pradesh, for example, and especially striking during its winter (February onwards) flowering season, when red flowers adorn otherwise bare branches. In Tamil Nadu, ilavumaram refers to both. If we are to trust Dymock et al. reporting at the turn of the 19th century, this is a locally recognized equivalence with roots as deep as the kapok’s trunk is wide: “the natives regard E. anfractuosum as a variety of the Bombax, and call it sveta sálmali or “white Sálmali” in Sanskrit” (216). And it makes Bombax and Ceiba another interchangeable pair just like Mahali kizhangu and Nannari, though clearly with less devastating ecological consequences.

That said, the tree that grows beside us is almost certainly Ceiba–a genus with 18 species, of which “Ceiba pentandra is the tallest, frequently emerging above the canopy (up to 70 m high) … and developing large buttresses bearing conical prickles. Flowers are pentamerous, small (2–3 cm), white, and its seven-foliolate leaves are glabrous. The fruit is a capsule (12–24 cm long), containing seeds surrounded by long, wooly, non-wettable hairs…” (Tareau et al., 2021). Though the flowers appear from February onwards like Bombax, they’re white and blossom on evergreen leaf-filled branches while Bombax’s showy red blossoms appear on the tree’s bare deciduous form. Ceiba seed pods are also longer; Bombax rather more petit.

Cultural Significance

Ceiba’s imposing height and impressive girth is perhaps why it stands in for the axis mundi of the Mayan world—the cosmic line connecting heaven and earth, allowing spirits to pass through worlds in their passage to heaven—amongst other symbolisms. Here, however, neither Ceiba nor Bombax are particularly venerated though they are colloquially paired and there is some common belief in the presence of tree spirits or yakshis and thus some belief that worshipping Bombax trees will bring fertility, children (Jain et al., 2009). Beyond that, however, there is no uniform sacralization or “physical and mythological centrality” as Taheur et al. (2021) are trying to establish, largely to then advance the claim that such trees should be considered “Cultural Keystone Species.”

There is undoubtedly mention of Bombax silk cotton in the Puranas. Priyamvrata, son of Syumbhuvamanu, circles the sun seven times while performing a yagna or sacrifice, and the wheels of his chariot become furrows which are seas of sugarcane juice, wine, ghee, curd, milk, and water, and the land between continents of black jamuns (Jambudvipa), lotuses (Plakṣadvipa) and shalmali trees (Salmalidvipa, शाल्मलीद्वीप)–and so on. The names remain, but the older consonances are largely lost in modern imaginaries.

Some local tribes in Rajasthan regard Bombax as totem, the flowers and tender leaves are eaten by some Bengali tribal communities, and the tree has an old recorded history of use in Unani medicine (Akhtar and Siddiqui 2019). Known as “Mocharas,” Dymock et al. reported in Pharmacographia Indica (1890: 216) that its dark red gum or “gond mocharas” “is very astringent and used “by both Hindus and Mahometans in diarrhea, dysentry and menorrhagia” (unclear here whether the tree itself is mocharas, or whether mocha-ras refers to the juice and gum of the tree). There are those who hold the tree to be a Kalpataru, a tree of life, for its multiple culinary and medicinal uses, roots to leaves to bark. The guru philosopher P.R. Sarkar is often cited as naming this tree as one of five spiritual ones planted in “Panchwati,” the sacred grove in which Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana took refuge, but there appears to be no significant history to buttress this claim.

In general, associations are mixed and Bombax has come to be somewhat feared, at least in the northern states. Its prickly trunk, its “kantakadruma” leads it to have associations with Yama, Lord of Death, or it is that it produces a “great show of flowers, but produces no fruit fit to eat” that makes it a growth of infernal regions? Though that, from Dymock et al. (1890: 215) strikes me a rather too Christian reading to be credible in the Indian context. Instead, Dymock et al. footnote a funny association: children apparently chew the tree’s thorns in place of the areca nut or supari they are presumably denied, giving them the name “Supari ka phul” and leading (of course) to a confusion about the source of the areca nut (218).

What is true, however, is that Bombax is burned in effigy-like form during Holikā Dāhana or the “Burning of Holika.” Holika was sister to Hiranyakashipu, the almost invincible asura who tried to destroy his son, Prahlada, by asking him to sit on a burning pyre on his aunt’s lap–but of course the boy was saved by his devotion to Vishnu, while Holika was incinerated. The event and Prahalada’s “bhakti vijayam” are re-created by the ceremonial burning of so many tall, straight Bombax trunks each Holi, it has caused no small ecological consternation about the survival of the species in those regions (Jain et al., 2009).

Such beliefs are not present in the south, and although neither Ceiba nor Bombax are venerated, no local beliefs or superstitions stand in the way of kapok or panju being used, and quite lovingly so, to make pillows for those two most awaited and heralded newcomers to families: babies and sons-in-law.

Dehiscent fruit capsules and their luxurious packaging

The 16th century botanist Carolus Clusius records the white silk cotton as Lanifera Arbor peregrina which Dymock et al. (1890) read as Eriodendron anfractuosum, and the “Father” of plant anatomy Nehemiah Grew adds in 1685: “That this Cotton is not so white as that of Clusius, may proceed from Age, or some difference in the Tree. ‘Tis rather of the colour of raw Silk, and hath a gloss like it; extream soft and fine, but not so long as Cotton wooll; and therefore unfit for Spinning” [Source]. Likewise, Bombax or red silk cotton, too, ages into the sheen of tussar silk, as you may observe from images.

The dehiscent fruit capsules or seed pods are really something of a marvel, if you sit with them long enough to see. You have to ask, how? How does so much stuffing fit so neatly and perfectly into these less-than-arm’s-length sized pods? They’re a bit like those legendary muslin saris that the weavers of erstwhile Bengal made, which could be folded into a matchbox. Each little cottony-silky nodule pulls out discreetly holding exactly one little black kanthil-goli-like seed; it’s as though each one was lovingly tucked away for a long ride to its future life. So the why part’s easy, because each capsule contains these many little black seeds which must be dispersed, perhaps across continents, so the bursting of the kapok pods and the emergence of the “panju” (all lignin and cellulose) floats the seeds all over and parachutes them (they’re heavier, after all) down as the breezes subside. Their hydrophobia and their seeking of the wind for movement no doubt were part of the reason for their extreme, long-range dispersal and the secret behind their consequent amphi-atlantic existence.

Wicks, Pillows, Yarns

Once I was done marveling at the sheer geometric logic of the fruit capsule construction, I did two things: made lamp wicks, made that baby pillow.

The former is not a traditional use. But seeing as ilavam panju is water resistant but absorbs oil beautifully (panju after all), it makes a perfect poothiri—the kind with the tip pointing upwards and a rounded body below—though the more common long wicks are always possible to roll, too. If you do have this “panju” falling like cloud wisps from your skies, give this a try just because it’s so ethereal. It helps to have a little milk or oil handy or the panju will escape your fingers or spring back to any other shape it pleases. Then stretch, roll at each end, fold, and roll the two rolled ends together, and keep them between your fingers to press down and flatten a base.

If burning a lamp in prayer, whatever be your faith, is meant to carry your aspirations upwards, there’s no better vehicle for the flame than clouds of silk sponge from the kapok which traverses all worlds.

Then when Abraham @fromkodur suggested making little boats out of the ilavam “shells,” @prithvimaya9 took the lamp idea to another level entirely. Make a panchamahabhutam lamp, they said: a little soil, the air and ether of the panju, the blaze of fire, and floated on water–all five elements invoked and represented.

And so, “what became of all that cloud you collected from the seed pods of the giant ilavu maram, amma?” Asked the boy who, until just the other day, was small enough to draw crowds of cheek-pinchers anywhere he went. “Did you soak it in oil and burn Deepavali lamps? Did you float the boats in moats? What happened to the fluff?”

I did all of that, came the mother’s reply.

I floated the pods in water with the fluff for a wick and I sewed a bag from a fresh cotton towel and I stuffed it with silk cotton from the ilavu maram to make the softest of pillows which hold now the pitter-patter of insects, the whooshes of wind, the flutters of bats and even the hisses of vultures and the hoots of owls who sit on the semal tree’s wide, reaching branches. If you place your ear to the pillow you’ll hear them all and the forest like you hear the whole ocean in a conch shell, and feel the tree mother’s love in the silky-soft beds she so carefully made for each of her beautiful black seeds.

Sources

Akhtar, S., & Siddiqui, M.Z. 2019. “A Review of Mocharas (Bombax malabaricum): In The Light of Unani Medicine.” International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology 4 (8): 744-750.

Dick CW, Bermingham E, Lemes MR, Gribel R. 2007. “Extreme long-distance dispersal of the lowland tropical rainforest tree Ceiba pentandra L. (Malvaceae) in Africa and the Neotropics.” Molecular Ecology 16(14): 3039-49. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2007.03341.x. PMID: 17614916.

Dymock, W., Warden, C.J.H., Hooper, D. 1890. Pharmacographia Indica Volume 1. London: Kegan Paul

Jain V., Verma S.K., and Katewa S.S. 2009. “Myths, traditions and fate of multipurpose Bombax ceiba L. – An appraisal.” Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge 8: 638–644.

Tareau, Marc-Alexandre, Alexander Greene, Guillaume Odonne, and Damien Davy. 2021. “Ceiba pentandra (Malvaceae) and associated species: Spiritual Keystone Species of the Neotropics.” Botany 100 (2): 127-140. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjb-2021-0099