THE MYTH ABOUT BITTER-KOLAS AND ALLIGATOR PEPPERS
“One day a neighbor called Okoye came in to see him….He immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk. ‘I have kola,’ he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest. ‘Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it,’ replied Okoye passing back the disc.” (Excerpt from Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe ) If you come from this part of the globe, you must have come across the bitter-kola and alligator pepper. In the traditional Nigerian society, these two items cannot be ignored or forgotten, as they are essential in most traditional occasions and rites: the most prominent being a sign of hospitality. On one hand, the bitter-kola (Garcinia Kola) gets its name from the sharp bitter taste it has. On the other...