A rich history

The banana could have been one of the fruits found in the Garden of Eden. After all, its history goes back to the earliest days of mankind.

A heritage of millennia

We now know that the species of this genus originated in the Malaysian jungles of South-East Asia, although nobody knows precisely where. But we can say with certainty that edible bananas have been grown since the dawn of recorded history. And some scientists see the banana as man’s first domesticated crop.

There are detailed descriptions of bananas in the most ancient sacred literature, for example the books of the Vedas, the Laws of Manú and other classic Sanskrit works. The banana is known to have been cultivated in western parts of India since time immemorial and Semitic traditions place its origins on the banks of the Euphrates; others maintain that the plants came from the foot of the Himalayas or Eastern Hindustan.

One of the first recorded references to bananas dates back to 327 BC when Alexander the Great first tasted them during his conquest of India. He is even credited with bringing the banana from India to the Western world. But the first banana boats were ancient vessels crossing the Indian Ocean to Africa.

Though this age-old fruit comes from a tree-like plant, it is actually a herbaceous perennial plant of the Musa genus and Musaceae family which grows in humid tropical and subtropical climates. An excellent source of carbohydrate, fibre, vitamins and minerals it is, in many ways, the perfect fruit.

As a fruit, the banana is consumed at the rich and poor man’s table all over the world – but no more so than in poorer countries since its nutritional properties are greater than those of rice, yucca, potatoes or maize.

The king of plants

One of the biggest migrations in human history took place thousands of years ago in equatorial Africa, a region then inhabited by the Bantu people. Originating from what is now Cameroon, they migrated to Southern Africa between around 1 000 BC and the third or fourth century AD. There is no clear explanation for the Bantu exodus but many anthropologists link it to a population explosion. Researchers exploring a fossilised rubbish pit in Cameroon found mineralised banana tissue 2,500 years old and believe this highly productive rainforest crop may have fuelled the Bantu migration. It certainly helped spread the cultivation of bananas through the continent of Africa.

In more recent African history, intrepid 19th-century explorers like Sir Henry Morton Stanley crossed the continent of Africa with a caravan of 600 men who lived off bananas for a whole year. Another 19th-century explorer and scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, wrote in his diary: “There is no other plant on earth that provides so much nutritional sustenance in this amount of space.” More poetically, the banana was once described as the “king of plants”. And where does the name come from? The Arabic word for finger, banan. After all, the bananas that originally grew in Africa and South-East Asia were only about as long as man’s finger.

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