They played a critical role in the long sea voyages of Austronesians by providing a portable source of food and water, as well as providing building materials for Austronesian outrigger boats. It also plays a central role in the Coconut Religion founded in 1963 in Vietnam.Ĭoconuts were first domesticated by the Austronesian peoples in Island Southeast Asia and were spread during the Neolithic via their seaborne migrations as far east as the Pacific Islands, and as far west as Madagascar and the Comoros. It forms the basis of wedding and worship rituals in Hinduism. It has also acquired religious significance in South Asian cultures, where it is used in rituals of Hinduism.
It also had ceremonial importance in pre-colonial animistic religions. The falling of its mature fruit has led to preoccupation with death by coconut. The coconut has cultural and religious significance in certain societies, particularly in the Austronesian cultures of the Western Pacific where it features in their mythologies, songs, and oral traditions. The hard shells, fibrous husks and long pinnate leaves can be used as material to make a variety of products for furnishing and decoration. Sweet coconut sap can be made into drinks or fermented into palm wine or coconut vinegar. Dried coconut flesh is called copra, and the oil and milk derived from it are commonly used in cooking – frying in particular – as well as in soaps and cosmetics. Mature, ripe coconuts can be used as edible seeds, or processed for oil and plant milk from the flesh, charcoal from the hard shell, and coir from the fibrous husk. Coconuts are distinct from other fruits because their endosperm contains a large quantity of clear liquid, called " coconut water" or "coconut juice". The inner flesh of the mature seed, as well as the coconut milk extracted from it, form a regular part of the diets of many people in the tropics and subtropics. The coconut tree provides food, fuel, cosmetics, folk medicine and building materials, among many other uses. They are ubiquitous in coastal tropical regions and are a cultural icon of the tropics. The name comes from the old Portuguese word coco, meaning "head" or "skull", after the three indentations on the coconut shell that resemble facial features. The term " coconut" (or the archaic " cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which botanically is a drupe, not a nut. The coconut tree ( Cocos nucifera) is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus Cocos. Possible native range prior to domestication
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