i just think they're neat
from fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz on 20 Aug 18:08
https://mander.xyz/post/36359984

#science_memes

threaded - newest

ryedaft@sh.itjust.works on 20 Aug 18:19 next collapse

They probably just made really good bongs

wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Aug 18:25 next collapse

And in a pinch, dongs.

jballs@sh.itjust.works on 20 Aug 20:57 next collapse
[deleted] on 20 Aug 21:16 collapse

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ruuster13@lemmy.zip on 20 Aug 19:10 next collapse

Why do you think we say “stoned off his gourd”?

shalafi@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 19:17 collapse

Just going to sit here and stare at this comment for a while.

ruuster13@lemmy.zip on 20 Aug 19:29 collapse

That’s what I do when I am.

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world on 21 Aug 11:21 collapse

Why would ancient humans have bothered growing bong gourds when they could have just punched holes in empty beer cans instead?

Broadfern@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 18:30 next collapse

Emotional support water bottles are human nature confirmed

Zwiebel@feddit.org on 20 Aug 18:33 next collapse

They are edible tho

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabash

Warl0k3@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 18:56 next collapse

Among other things.

The gourd is used traditionally to administer enemas. Along the upper Congo River an enema apparatus is made by making a hole in one end of the gourd for filling it, and using a resin to attach a hollow cane to the gourd’s neck.[52]

which sounds… splintery…

Randomgal@lemmy.ca on 20 Aug 19:50 next collapse

Ok now you got my attention

rautapekoni@sopuli.xyz on 20 Aug 20:49 collapse

There’s also a 13th century persian poem called The Importance of Gourd Crafting that offers other rather intimate uses for the produce.

chtk@feddit.nl on 20 Aug 20:42 next collapse

If only we had told this to Aleksey Tartarov sooner.

Bluewing@lemmy.world on 21 Aug 11:39 collapse

There is always risk in any medical procedure. Or sexy time fun…

[deleted] on 20 Aug 19:10 collapse

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Cat_Daddy@hexbear.net on 20 Aug 18:54 next collapse

They make great marlin houses

dumples@midwest.social on 20 Aug 19:00 next collapse

At the art fair by my house is a lady who makes gourd earrings, birdhouses and instruments. She even wears a gourd hat. She grows them all herself. I tried to grow a luffa this year inspired by her. It failed because they are hard to germinate. Next year I’m doing a bottle gourd

shalafi@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 19:16 next collapse

I’m growing bird houses and luffa! Get another pack of luffa seeds. Mine are 2 or 3 years old and almost every one has sprouted. This year I just stuck ‘em in the ground.

Be aware! Once they get rolling they can grow nearly 1’ a day!

darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Aug 20:14 collapse

Never wear a hat you haven’t grown yourself.

dumples@midwest.social on 20 Aug 20:25 next collapse

Real baller move. Time to get some sheep so I can make my own wool hats I guess. The gourd hat is more decorative than functional in the winter

[deleted] on 20 Aug 21:29 collapse

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logicbomb@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 20:26 collapse

“As you can see, this hat is felted from my own body hair, and the decorative bits? My toenails.”

Contramuffin@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 19:01 next collapse

It probably has to do with weight. Pottery is pretty heavy and I assume this gourd, when hollowed out, isn’t

Ashiette@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 19:51 collapse

And resistance. Pottery tends to break easily, organic material is more resistant to most types of mechanical stress.

Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de on 27 Aug 16:26 collapse

it also kinda sucks to make pottery actually, tons of work
meanwhile growing gourds is like… put seeds in the ground 4head

quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 20 Aug 19:27 next collapse

They were also used as personal flotation devices and floats for fishing nets.

Duranie@leminal.space on 20 Aug 19:42 next collapse

My mom used to do arts and crafts things with gourds. When she passed there were easily over a dozen laying around the house plus a giant one she had started prepping, but never finished.

She was cremated, and the plans were to bury her in the plot she already had next to my dad. State or county requirements, however, that works, allowed us to be the ones to dig the hole to actually place her urn in the ground. When the time came, her five children, their spouses and many grandchildren gathered to dig a great big hole in the ground. We ended up taking the big gourd that she had been working on and placed it in the ground, then as we filled that with dirt we placed her urn inside the gourd. In the end everyone took shovelfuls and handfuls of earth and covered her up.

I can never look at a gourd without thinking of my mom.

CobblerScholar@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 20:43 next collapse

Thats really sweet, thanks for sharing

GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca on 20 Aug 20:44 next collapse

Someday in the distant future, there is going to be a very confused archeologist.

Duranie@leminal.space on 20 Aug 20:51 next collapse

Lol when it was discussed with the funeral home folks (who gave us the shovel to dig with - left it leaning against the back door of the funeral home the morning of) they just said to let them know when we were done so they could document what was left there for the records.

Yes. This happened in a very, very rural area lol.

chaogomu@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 20:52 collapse

Depending on how far along the prep work on the gourd was, it may have decomposed.

grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org on 20 Aug 20:49 next collapse

My dad grew gourdes. One of the happiest pictures I have of him late in life is him standing on the porch, surrounded by gourdes hanging to dry. I have three of his goudes. I also have one of his loufas.

flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works on 21 Aug 01:21 collapse

What a delightful way to go!

Love the whole thing. How big was the gourd? (I gather it held the ashes?)

carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Aug 20:31 next collapse

holy shit is that why a common word for reusable water bottles in french is gourde??? whoa

WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 22:18 collapse

You have an accent aggue on your name, so I’m inclined to believe you, but so do I. I I don’t know how much authority it really imbues. Can you be trusted?

carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Aug 22:22 collapse

i am to be trusted, in my opinion (which you can trust because i am to be trusted) ☺️

/j

Deathray5@lemmynsfw.com on 21 Aug 00:33 next collapse

On the subject of the name, you available to come check out a large cauldron?

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Aug 23:28 collapse

I see no accent aigu: (

carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 26 Aug 01:01 collapse

display names don’t show up on some clients, like voyager for example

mine is “Chloé 🥕” :3

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 26 Aug 20:14 collapse

Enchanté :)

Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz on 20 Aug 21:12 next collapse

There could be some sense figuring first out water containers. Old saying is that human survives few minutes without oxygen, few days without water and few weeks without food. Water > Food

Also as a hunter gatherer, food is around you (berries, roots, game) and you can carry them with you. Drinking water is more scarce and keeping it with you when you move around needs some container.

SeptugenarianSenate@leminal.space on 21 Aug 04:43 collapse

I saw bucketloads of blackberries growing down in the trees behind the park the other week. But as water with decreased nanoplastic contamination levels continues to become scarce in as many accessible places throughout nearly every system in our environment, Gourd is Good for keeping a filtered fitty (50 fl. ounces) of crystal clear lectrolyzed gulpers on hand in a pinch. It may even prove itself to be Great again, who knows!

ImWaitingForRetcons@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 21:41 next collapse

Bottle gourds are still eaten pretty regularly in India, and I suspect, other parts of the world too.

Yep, I just checked Wikipedia, and yes, tons of people around the world still eat it.

Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world on 20 Aug 22:36 next collapse

tons of purple around the world still eat it.

I wonder what the other colors eat.

humorlessrepost@lemmy.world on 21 Aug 00:36 collapse

The blues eat away at my life.

SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 20 Aug 22:53 collapse

I was surprised to see them called inedible. The young gourds are tender and taste like squash.

BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net on 20 Aug 22:01 next collapse

The large number of recipes on the internet seems to suggest that they are actually edible, though?

a_little_red_rat@hexbear.net on 20 Aug 22:11 next collapse

This reminds me of Ursula Le Guin’s “bag theory”: that the first tool humans developed, was not a weapon which is usually taught, like a spear, but rather, a bag, to carry things: for example for berries we picked. A nice reframe from the violent status quo.

Zephorah@discuss.online on 20 Aug 23:06 next collapse

Consider the luffa next. It’s a squash of sorts that grows on a vine. The inner matrix of the large zucchini looking fruits is the luffa sponge. Zone 10.

faythofdragons@slrpnk.net on 21 Aug 04:44 collapse

You can even eat the luffa before it gets too old and fiberous.

mavu@discuss.tchncs.de on 20 Aug 23:09 next collapse

more durable and lighter than pottery.
gourd does the job better.

janus2@lemmy.zip on 20 Aug 23:45 collapse

also carries water much better than a basket

mavu@discuss.tchncs.de on 21 Aug 07:07 collapse

I hope someone is going to post a “well, actually…” with an obscure wiki link soon, or i might lose my faith in the internet… it’s been almost 8 hours…

Zoomboingding@lemmy.world on 21 Aug 13:52 collapse
solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Aug 00:32 next collapse

I just found my solution to bringing water to a concert without using a shitty plastic bottle.

Genius@lemmy.zip on 21 Aug 03:40 next collapse

Is that what Gaara kept his sand in?

Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 21 Aug 03:47 next collapse

Portable water is kind of a big deal technologically, IMO. Especially for a persistence predator species (aka humans).

ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world on 21 Aug 11:15 collapse

Some fun facts: Grover Krantz, the originator of the concept of human persistence hunting (which Wikipedia labels “conjecture”), was better-known as a staunch advocate for the existence of Bigfoot (there is of course no such thing as Bigfoot - it’s obviously a Yeti in a gorilla suit). Interestingly, he didn’t propose it as an explanation for bipedality, one of the unique characteristics of the human lineage, but rather as an explanation for our big brains, speculating that bigger brains would allow persistence hunters to survive a large fraction of their brain neurons dying from the heat stress that would result from long-distance running during the day.

For apparently no reason, Krantz’ skeleton and that of his favorite dog are on display at the Smithsonian.

Vanth@reddthat.com on 21 Aug 11:50 collapse

I kinda want to get a gourd and stencil “Stanley” on the side.

fossilesque@mander.xyz on 21 Aug 11:52 collapse

I’m gonna slap a Coach logo on it and make a new purse. Maybe spray paint it black too.