They are edible tho
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
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Among other things.
The gourd is used traditionally to administer enemas. Along the upper Congo River an enema apparatus is made by making a hole in one end of the gourd for filling it, and using a resin to attach a hollow cane to the gourd's neck.[52]
which sounds... splintery...
Ok now you got my attention
There's also a 13th century persian poem called The Importance of Gourd Crafting that offers other rather intimate uses for the produce.
If only we had told this to Aleksey Tartarov sooner.
They probably just made really good bongs
Why do you think we say "stoned off his gourd"?
Just going to sit here and stare at this comment for a while.
That's what I do when I am.
Why would ancient humans have bothered growing bong gourds when they could have just punched holes in empty beer cans instead?
Emotional support water bottles are human nature confirmed
It probably has to do with weight. Pottery is pretty heavy and I assume this gourd, when hollowed out, isn't
And resistance. Pottery tends to break easily, organic material is more resistant to most types of mechanical stress.
At the art fair by my house is a lady who makes gourd earrings, birdhouses and instruments. She even wears a gourd hat. She grows them all herself. I tried to grow a luffa this year inspired by her. It failed because they are hard to germinate. Next year I'm doing a bottle gourd
I'm growing bird houses and luffa! Get another pack of luffa seeds. Mine are 2 or 3 years old and almost every one has sprouted. This year I just stuck 'em in the ground.
Be aware! Once they get rolling they can grow nearly 1' a day!
Never wear a hat you haven't grown yourself.
"As you can see, this hat is felted from my own body hair, and the decorative bits? My toenails."
Real baller move. Time to get some sheep so I can make my own wool hats I guess. The gourd hat is more decorative than functional in the winter
They were also used as personal flotation devices and floats for fishing nets.
My mom used to do arts and crafts things with gourds. When she passed there were easily over a dozen laying around the house plus a giant one she had started prepping, but never finished.
She was cremated, and the plans were to bury her in the plot she already had next to my dad. State or county requirements, however, that works, allowed us to be the ones to dig the hole to actually place her urn in the ground. When the time came, her five children, their spouses and many grandchildren gathered to dig a great big hole in the ground. We ended up taking the big gourd that she had been working on and placed it in the ground, then as we filled that with dirt we placed her urn inside the gourd. In the end everyone took shovelfuls and handfuls of earth and covered her up.
I can never look at a gourd without thinking of my mom.
Someday in the distant future, there is going to be a very confused archeologist.
Depending on how far along the prep work on the gourd was, it may have decomposed.
Lol when it was discussed with the funeral home folks (who gave us the shovel to dig with - left it leaning against the back door of the funeral home the morning of) they just said to let them know when we were done so they could document what was left there for the records.
Yes. This happened in a very, very rural area lol.
Thats really sweet, thanks for sharing
My dad grew gourdes. One of the happiest pictures I have of him late in life is him standing on the porch, surrounded by gourdes hanging to dry. I have three of his goudes. I also have one of his loufas.
What a delightful way to go!
Love the whole thing. How big was the gourd? (I gather it held the ashes?)
There could be some sense figuring first out using plant as water bottle. Old saying is that human survives few minutes without oxygen, few days without water and few weeks without food. Water > Food
Also as a hunter gatherer, food is around you (berries, roots, game) and you can carry them with you. Drinking water is more scarce and keeping it with you when you move around needs some container.
I saw bucketloads of blackberries growing down in the trees behind the park the other week. But as water with decreased nanoplastic contamination levels continues to become scarce in as many accessible places throughout nearly every system in our environment, Gourd is Good for keeping a filtered fitty (50 fl. ounces) of crystal clear lectrolyzed gulpers on hand in a pinch. It may even prove itself to be Great again, who knows!
Bottle gourds are still eaten pretty regularly in India, and I suspect, other parts of the world too.
Yep, I just checked Wikipedia, and yes, tons of purple around the world still eat it.
tons of purple around the world still eat it.
I wonder what the other colors eat.
The blues eat away at my life.
I was surprised to see them called inedible. The young gourds are tender and taste like squash.
Consider the luffa next. It’s a squash of sorts that grows on a vine. The inner matrix of the large zucchini looking fruits is the luffa sponge. Zone 10.
You can even eat the luffa before it gets too old and fiberous.
more durable and lighter than pottery.
gourd does the job better.
also carries water much better than a basket
I hope someone is going to post a "well, actually.." with an obscure wiki link soon, or i might lose my faith in the internet.. it's been almost 8 hours..
I just found my solution to bringing water to a concert without using a shitty plastic bottle.
Is that what Gaara kept his sand in?
Portable water is kind of a big deal technologically, IMO. Especially for a persistence predator species (aka humans).
Some fun facts: Grover Krantz, the originator of the concept of human persistence hunting (which Wikipedia labels "conjecture"), was better-known as a staunch advocate for the existence of Bigfoot (there is of course no such thing as Bigfoot - it's obviously a Yeti in a gorilla suit). Interestingly, he didn't propose it as an explanation for bipedality, one of the unique characteristics of the human lineage, but rather as an explanation for our big brains, speculating that bigger brains would allow persistence hunters to survive a large fraction of their brain neurons dying from the heat stress that would result from long-distance running during the day.
For apparently no reason, Krantz' skeleton and that of his favorite dog are on display at the Smithsonian.
I kinda want to get a gourd and stencil "Stanley" on the side.
I'm gonna slap a Coach logo on it and make a new purse. Maybe spray paint it black too.
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