The fruit of the Calabash tree

Totumas – Panama’s lost art

By David Dell

I WAS SITTING in the Café Essenzia in Volcan, when my good friend Ivan Flores dropped a pile of wooden bowls on the table. "You must write about this David," he said, these are Totumas, the making of these bowls is becoming a dying art in Panama."

At first glance I thought the bowls and cups were made out of plastic, because they were pliable and strong and yet had an almost machine-like finish. Ivan explained that they were made from a Calabash tree. He said that in days gone by almost everyone served salad, rice or corn in totumas, but with the advent of cheap imported plastics, the knowledge of how to make these unique containers has all but disappeared.

He knew of one woman near the town of Concepcion in Chiriqui, that still made them, and so we went in search of one of the last artisans in the Totuma craft.

Ten minutes west of Concepcion is the small hamlet of La Colonia. The paved road ends at the local school and on the short drive down a rough country road, Ivan spotted several calabash trees. He pulled one down and handed the large green fruit to me and I was struck by the toughness of the skin – it was as hard as a coconut.

At our destination smoke was rising from a traditional stone fire called a "fogon" and a man was sitting on a low stool shucking a huge pile of corn. Then Ivan introduced me to 55-year-old, Enidina Saldaña. She still makes and sells the calabash bowls and was happy to show us the process.

She cuts through the hard shell of the fruit with a hacksaw. Then, painstakingly, the pulp is removed with a large, metal cooking spoon. This process can take between 6 and 8 hours. When the inner and outer skin is scraped smooth – the job is finished. The totuma is ready to go without the need for sealing or varnishing. Incredibly, for all her hard work, Enidina only charges about $1.50 per large bowl. With regular cleaning these durable cups and bowls should last twenty to thirty years.

Life for her and her family is simple – they do have electricity, but they draw water from a well and most of their essential foods grow within steps of their home; including plantains, oranges, corn, yucca, sugar cane and sweet peppers. She went on to say that we use too many chemicals in our lives. In her area, things like breast and prostate cancer are so infrequent that they hardly need mentioning. The healthiness of this lifestyle was evident as she introduced us to her ninety-year old mother, still, fit, walking and with clear mental acuity.

Totumas have another quite surprising application and that is as a locater for underground water. Friends tell me that their builders placed a dozen or more totumas overnight, face down on the ground. Next morning they turned the bowls upright and below the bowl that had the greatest amount of moisture – that’s where they successfully dug a well.

Totumas are more than a tourist curio. They form part of a great source of practical wisdom, in Panama. We should take great care to ensure that our old crafts and ways are not forgotten.