Edible Clay
Geophagy is the word for eating clay. In 1891 Dr. A.G. Vorderman, health inspector in the former Dutch East Indies, donated a collection edible earth to the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (NL). The Javanese distinguished different kinds of ampo, which they prepared with great care. First, they washed the clay and removed sand and stones. After soaking it an overnight in water, the clay was kneaded into flat cookies or small pipes. Then they were salted and finally roasted.
Vordermans collected 40 samples of raw and cooked clay from different parts of the Dutch East Indies. The raw clay samples are still wrapped in the original brown paper; the roasted clay cookies are kept in glass jars. All of them still have the original hand written labels with the location where the clay is found.
In his manual for comparative ethnology of the Dutch East Indies, Dr. G.A. Wilken writes about eating clay:
‘Many wild and semi-civilized Asian tribes, Negros tribes in Africa, American Indians and even people in South- Europe eat clay’.
People eat clay, not only when they are very hungry, but also because it contains healthy minerals. If it is darkish red, it is full of iron and specific kinds of clay contain salt, calcium and magnesium. Pregnant women all over the world eat clay. In Java, women told Wilken that it helps against sickness in the first months of pregnancy. He also discovered that the miners of the Oranje-Nassau Mine on Borneo changed their opium addiction for an addiction to clay containing 28% bitumen:
‘…their faces are pale and swollen; their eyelids are inflamed. They are lethargic, constipated and because of that melancholic as well.’
References:
A.G. Wilken: Handleiding voor de vergelijkende volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië. Leiden, 1883
L.Roodenburg: Eten op Aarde. Madame Jeanet Publishers, Rotterdam 2007
