Bananas and Food Security - Bioversity International

Afrique / Africa : G. Rossel
recently, are often derived from verbs denoting the state of ripeness of the fruits (i.e.
their colour or their texture). This category of names came into being only after plantain
had become a food crop.
Cultivar names are spread in different ways. The main patterns of spread that can be
distinguished are widespread-scattered, widespread-diffuse and localized. Names that
are found over large areas but occur mainly within specific linguistic groups often
concern old cultivars. Significantly, this is usually the case with names for the French
Giant and Medium Green cultivars (e.g. *-zu , *-konja and *-konde), which, in many
cases, have a generic meaning as well. Names that are spread over large areas in a
uniform manner and that occur in different language groups mainly belong to cultivars
that arrived relatively recently, gained a great popularity and therefore spread fast.
Examples of this in West-Central Africa are the French Medium Green, fused-pedicel
cultivar (-seluka), the False Horn Medium Green cultivar (-banga) and the French
Small Green cultivar (-biri). The popularity of these three cultivars is mainly due to their
short growing cycle and their prolific suckering. Cultivar names that are only found
locally may concern cultivars that are very new and had not yet time to spread far. For
instance, the French Medium Green, red sap cultivar (malongo “blood”) only occurs in
northern Congo, south-eastern Cameroon and north-eastern Gabon. Apart from that,
there are also cultivar names that were coined several times and independently in
different languages. These names are usually motivated in the same way and may refer to
the same or to different cultivars. The most important examples of this are cultivars with
salient morphological features such as blunt fruits (“short fingers”), spiraloid bunches
(“turn-turn”) or chimaeric stripes (“striped squirrel”).
The itineraries of individual cultivars can sometimes be retraced with the help of
linguistic information. Moreover, the patterns of spread of the crop, of its cultivars and
their names, of other musa-related nomenclature and of other crops and crop names,
may also provide indications for the history of the peoples involved. This can be
illustrated by the cultivars grown in the border area of northern Congo, south-eastern
Cameroon and north-eastern Gabon. The various peoples presently situated here speak
languages that belong to different Bantu as well as Ubangi language groups and live from
agriculture and fishing, or from hunting and gathering. According to linguistic evidence,
the various cultivars came to the area, or originated therein, via different pathways and
at different periods in time. For instance, the French Medium Green, fused pedicels
cultivar, which originated somewhere near the Gabonese coast, is found under two
different names. The first, ekoaja, is used in the languages spoken along the right bank
of the Sangha river and came to the area via southern Cameroon. The second name,
selukwe, is used by the various peoples on the left bank of the river and arrived here via
central Congo. The distribution patterns of these names coincide with those of the
generic names for “maize” and “banana” in the languages along the Sangha. Since the
time and place of introduction and the pathways of spread of these two crops are more
or less known, we also have an idea about the pathways and time of arrival of this
plantain cultivar in the area.
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