810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 25, 1987 Earth-Bating Is Common Among People WASHINGTON Some peo ple eat earth and not just in times of famine or because they’re crazy. In some societies, it’s nor mal human behavior. “We think how horrible, how revolting, but there’s no stigma. It’s a nearly universal cross cultural phenomenon, an accepted fact of life,” says geographer John M. Hunter of Michigan State Uni versity, who has studied earth eating, known as geophagy, over the past 20 years, primarily in Afri ca and Central America. What earth-eaters consume mostly are fine white clays such as kaolin not gntty, organic dirt. The clays are often shaped like eggs, disks, or wafer-thin tablets, baked in the sun or smoked over a fire, and sold in outdoor markets. Why people eat earth is rooted in religious beliefs, cultural tradi tions, medicinal practices, and physiological needs. Clay may be eaten to reduce hookworm-caused abdominal pain, ease hunger pangs, soothe heartburn and nausea, control diar rhea, or simply satisfy a craving. To discerning palates, some soil has a pleasingly sour, lemony taste. But the most common manifes tation of geophagy, Hunter says, is during preg nancy, so much so that he calls clays used for eating “pregnancy clays.” In India, for example, elaborate, baked clay figurines are given as bridal gifts, to be broken and eaten during pregnancy. In Africa, Hunter says, if a preg nant woman is “undernourished, exhausted from many pregnancies ■wSW BLACK REP iauow SLUE &ROWN CPLBNOPR: P CPUNPPR LOOKS V6RYS/MPU, BUT UTOOK MPKY CiNTUR/BS TO UJORKOUTOURmyOF KBBP/Ne 7RPCKOT T/MB. PROBQBiy TRB F/RSTN/PY OF KB BP/ NO 7RPCK OB T/MB COPS 70 COUNT THB opysaysoMs, tnbn CAMS TNB SUND/Pi,s, P/U BPRLY PBU/CB FOR TBU-- /KO T/MB. m a few years, has no doctor to see or pharmacy to go to, and no money for nutritional supple ments, she resorts to intuitive, pragmatic folk medicine.” Under these circumstances, he explains, “clays can definitely supply minerals to the fetus. They compare favorably with Western pharmaceutical supplements.” Hunter’s judgment is based on laboratory tests at Michigan State that analyzed clay samples and simulated human digestion to determine what the body receives from clay. His work is supported in part by the National Geographic Society. Depending on where clays originate, they can contain miner als such as iron, calcium, magne sium, potassium, phosphorous, zinc, copper, and manganese. Geophagy is a harmless practice unless carried to excess, Hunter says. Heavy, habitual clay-eating can impede the body’s absorption 1/ minerals and block the colon. But culturally rooted geophagy, he says, should not be confused with a psychiatric disorder, com monly called pica, that is mani fested by chronic, compulsive eat ing of nonfoods such as gravel, chalk, paint chips, or dirt Geophagy which can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman times, when embossed red clay medallions were widely used as medicine is still practiced in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central America, and the United States. Hunter believes that Africans probably started eating clay to satisfy hunger pangs. A person would reach out for the nearest bit ?EF\C\A GREENI LT BROWS) LT BLUE LT GREEN 'c 7-30-37 0 of clay, breaking off a piece of the fireplace, for example. “That smoked clay would be crispy and crunchy to eat,” he says. As the practice evolved, a favo rite family clay pit would be found, and then one preferred by a group of families ora village. Eventually a peasant industry emerged, with clays sold in markets, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Clays for trade are usually washed, mixed with water, kneaded, shaped, often decorated, and dried in the sun. Some are left in lump form. They all sell for pennies. 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It is still practiced by some blacks, mostly during pregnancy, in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Even when some black women move to Northern cities, they are sent clays from the family clay mound. Hunter says. But others look down on the clay-eating habits of their mothers and grand mothers and consume less nutritious laundry starch instead. In Central America, clay-eating is associated with the worship of the Black Christ at Esquipulas in eastern Guatemala. Once a sacred Indian site known for its healing j triple P| d „ I j I muds and hot springs, it became a Christian shrine after the Spanish Conquest. A 5-foot-high image of Christen the cross, carved in 1595, became known as the Black Christ because its brown woods resembled the copper-colored skin of the Indians. More than a million people a year, most from Central America, now visit the shrine, says geogra pher Robert N. Thomas of Michi gan State. Small,glistening white clay tablets embossed with the image of Christ and known as “pan del Senor” (bread of the Lord) are sold to the pilgrims. The bis (Turn to Page B 12) a large white bear a kind of tooth a type of skate a milk giver a farmer s tool a senous promise you make a female deer one of five on your foot great sadness a dam maker a high temperature a person who makes cloth 10. a long skinny animal a.kmd of engine a small red dot on your face
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