The Kola Nut: A Highly Respected Nut In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe the kola nut is a large part of tradition and respect. The kola nut is highly valued due to the fact that most Nigerian tribes believe that the kola nut tree was the first tree on the earth (Barron 1).The kola nut is used to welcome guests into one’s home. The kola nut is mainly grown in Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Brazil (Onyioha 2). When guests come over to one’s home, the host is to present anywhere from two to sixteen kola nuts (Widjaja 3). If no kola nuts are present then the host has to explain why and apologize (Widjaja 2). Once the kola nuts are presented, they are first shown to the oldest guest who acknowledges that they saw the nuts by briefly touching the plate with the
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The plate is then passed around so that all the guests may see the kola nuts. Once the plate is returned to the host the host chooses one nut and gives it to the main guest while saying ‘Öjï luo ünö okwuo ebe osi bia.’ which translates into ‘When the Kola nut reaches home, it will tell where it came from.’ This is simply a way of saying that the guest needs to take the kola nut home with them to prove that they had gone somewhere else. The nut is then returned to the host to be given to the eldest host who will bless the nut by holding it in their right hand and saying either a blessing, a prayer, or a toast in the form of a proverb (Widjaja 3).The kola nut is then opened with either a knife or the hands of the host (Widjaja 4). If the nut breaks into only two pieces, it shows that the host has an evil motive behind the kola. For welcoming ceremonies like this, they try to avoid using cola nitida kola nuts since they usually only break into to two pieces and they try to use the cola acuminata kola nut more
The plate is then passed around so that all the guests may see the kola nuts. Once the plate is returned to the host the host chooses one nut and gives it to the main guest while saying ‘Öjï luo ünö okwuo ebe osi bia.’ which translates into ‘When the Kola nut reaches home, it will tell where it came from.’ This is simply a way of saying that the guest needs to take the kola nut home with them to prove that they had gone somewhere else. The nut is then returned to the host to be given to the eldest host who will bless the nut by holding it in their right hand and saying either a blessing, a prayer, or a toast in the form of a proverb (Widjaja 3).The kola nut is then opened with either a knife or the hands of the host (Widjaja 4). If the nut breaks into only two pieces, it shows that the host has an evil motive behind the kola. For welcoming ceremonies like this, they try to avoid using cola nitida kola nuts since they usually only break into to two pieces and they try to use the cola acuminata kola nut more