I am currently identifying samples recovered from an archaeological site in the Pacific coast of Panama. Does anyone have information about the use of Roupala montana or other wood species as firewood for producing aromatic smoke in funerary contexts (sahumerios)?
Hi Maria
I don't have and informations from Pacific coast, but maybe this will be useful (from Europe):
J. Baeten, K. Deforce, S. Challe, D. De Vos, P. Degryse 2014; Holy smoke in Medieval funerary rites: Chemical fingerprints of Frankincense in Southern Belgian incense burners, "PLoS ONE" 9(11): e113142, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113142.
https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/469445/1/Baeten-et-al-2014-holy-smoke.pdf
Best Regards
Maciej Wawrzczak
I notice Wikipedia, dodgy source I know, refers to the following
Ghillean T. Prance, Vanessa Plana, Katie S. Edwards and R. Toby Pennington (2007). "Proteaceae". Flora Neotropica. 100 (1): 1–218. JSTOR 4393956.
Winer, Lise (2009). Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago: On Historical Principles. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
as discussing medicinal and aphrodisiac properties of this wood.
given that some cultures, e.g. Ancient Egypt are known to link aphrodisiacs to funerary rituals it does not seem unreasonable for a connection to be made.
The only problem is that in general it seems to be extracted resin that is burnt although whether that is purely for convenience of shipping is unclear since in most cases the sources of these aromatics are remote from the areas of consumption. It might perhaps be relevant to find out how close these plants grow to their archaeological find spots. If they are too near I suspect that it would be impossible to sustain the hypothesis that these are being burnt for ritual reasons, although neither can it be excluded, if they are more remote then it enhances the possibility of their being used for ritual purposes.
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