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Bamboo and rattan (2)

Second of three parts

During Work Education class in my grade school days – nowadays I think it’s called Edukasyong Pangtahanan at Pangkabuhayan – boys were often assigned projects that used bamboo as material. We would visit a nearby handicrafts shop and take our pick among the bamboo scrap in the supplier’s yard.

Although thoroughly urbanized, I knew enough woodcraft to recognize the main types of bamboo. However, an unusual pile of slim-looking poles caught my eye, while the shop workers soaked, heated, and twisted them into shapes that soon became chairs. Other workers were weaving fine strips of the same material into the chair frames.

I would learn that this solid but very pliable sort of “bamboo” – variably called uway, yantok, palasan, and dozens of other specific names aside from the generic “rattan” – wasn’t a real bamboo but a kind of palm that abundantly grew in rainforests.

Much later, I would learn that the real-life rattan plant was a creature so different in character from the elegant bamboo that graced Chinese watercolors. The forest-dwelling rattans were mischievous fiends bristling with spines that – I found to my utmost chagrin – snagged on one’s jacket, whisked one’s cap away, or pricked one’s arm as he groped his way in strange dark forests.

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“So tell me all you know about rattan,” said my smart-ass neighbor Kabsat Kandu, with that expression that silently said he knew a lot more than I did.

Well, I said, the most important thing is that rattans are spiny climbing palms with very long and very flexible stems that grow among the tropical and subtropical rainforests of Southeast Asia.

Sometimes confused with bamboo, rattans can be easily recognized because their stems are solid, whereas most bamboo culms are hollow.

All rattans belong to the family Calamoideae, with 600 different species currently known and classified into 13 genera. All species are found only in the Old World: mostly in the Malay peninsula, Borneo, Philippines, and New Guinea. A few species are native to Africa. There are no true rattans in South America, although there are similar climbing forest palms.

Rattan stems, ranging from 3 mm to 10 cm in diameter, climb trees all the way to the top, from where they may spread to nearby trees of the forest canopy. In good conditions, some species may grow to as long as 200 meters.

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Surrounding the stem are leaf sheaths, nearly always spiny. The fierce-looking spines are often arrayed into neat rows, such that animals can’t feed on the tender shoots hidden within the leaf-sheaths.

Like alien monsters, many rattans grow whip-like extensions, either on the leaf sheaths or at the ends of the leaves. These wicked-looking whips are armed with clusters of hook-like barbs. They hitch onto other branches and support the vine as it climbs up the forest canopy.

Ants and wasps also build nests among these formidable defenses, thus adding more protection to the already well-protected plant. When the rattan is touched, some ant colonies rattle loudly by beating their jaws against the vine.

So, next time you stumble into a spiny whip that rattles an unearthly sound as it dances in the night among the trees, relax. It isn’t the fearsome tikbalang. It’s just your future rattan wall décor greeting you.

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Despite its seemingly total hostility to intruders, rattan has proven to be most useful to humans – first of all to the forest peoples who were probably the first to discover it.

Rattan, like bamboo, has unequalled resiliency. It is springy and strong, yet easy to bend into fixed shapes by simple steaming.

It is woven into baskets, fish traps, light furniture, or into cable-like ropes that are strong enough to hold up foot bridges. Split into thin strips, rattan is woven into mats, hats, raincoats, chair and bed webbing, other household objects, and intricate decorative linings.

One can say that if bamboo forms the bones and muscles of most community structures in Asia, rattan serves as the sinews and tendons.

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Most forest-dwelling peoples are familiar with rattan’s other, survival-level uses. For one, rattan is an emergency source of drinking water. Like other climbing plants, the rattan vine has large water ducts in its stem. Thirsty hikers who can’t wait to find a spring can simply cut off the end of a rattan vine and drink the clean filtered water that drips out.

A few rattan species have soft edible stems – bitter but highly nutritious. Simply mix with other vegetables, boil in bagoong, and serve hot. Others have edible sweet-sour fruits, or exude a red resin that natives use as a dye or medicinal concoction.

Just be careful, though, in choosing your rattan for food or drink. Some species may be poisonous, or have hairy outer layers that irritate the mouth. #

(Email your feedback to jun@nordis.net)

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