“She arrived more than 700 years ago,” they say. She is the famous Baobab tree, “Perukka maram” (பெருக்க மரம்), as she is known in Tamil. I was helping a family take photographs with the Baobab tree in the background. She stands at the center of the scene, encircled by a paved pathway on the flat land of Delft Island in Sri Lanka.
Baobab trees have gained attention as a rare species in the region, not only for their unusual form but also for their migration history. Locally known as ali gaha, bottle trees, or elephant trees (due to the resemblance of their bark to the skin of elephants), baobabs are native to Africa, Madagascar, and Australia. Oral history recounts that Arab traders brought Baobab fruits as camel fodder to the shores of Mannar. These trees have long been in the cultural landscape, mentioned in the 1860s work, “Ceylon: An account of the Island” and 1908 work, “ The book of Ceylon.” Today, they are officially recognized as protected species because of their migratory origins and age.
A 2003 study identified 40–60 Baobab trees in northern Sri Lanka. Many of them have been mapped and documented as part of conservation efforts in Sri Lanka. Through site visits, documentation, and participant observation, I focus on three such trees in the Jaffna Peninsula and Mannar to ask: What spatial relationship do the Baobab trees hold in relation to the surrounding (sacred and secular?)built structures and human activities? Trees inhabit distinct ontologies, each reflecting complex entangled relationships embedded in the rhythms of everyday life.
Each Baobab tree stands in unique cultural landscapes. According to the information plaque at the site, in the past, these trees were mostly found near forts, merchant cities, harbors, and ancient trading centers including Kaluthaipiddy, in Pungudutheevu. Today, the tree on the Island is enclosed within a small park beside a Hindu temple. The paved walkway around the tree and the spatial arrangement of the park make the tree a central spatial marker (why it matters?is this sacred?). In contrast, the Baobab on Delft Island stands on open isolated flatland, while the Mannar’s Baobab tree– the oldest and largest in the country (25 feet high and 64 feet in circumference)– sits beside a tarred road leading to the fishing harbour of Pallimunai. Unlike others, it is located in a residential area, and also encircled by a paved walkway. These landscapes are distinct and shape/ get shaped by varying degrees of human interactions.
Unlike many Baobab trees across the country, these three have been drawn into the overlapping interest of tourism, conservation and archeology in Sri Lanka. Information plaques in Delft and Pungudutheevu mark the official opening of these sites in 2019 and 2020. It also marks the years in which the sites entered the entangled circuits of cultural/natural heritage conservation and tourism. In Pungudutheevu, an archeological plaque narrates Baobab’s migration history and (cultural relevance?) , framing it as a protected heritage and tourist site since 2020. In contrast to these two trees, boards near the baoba’s tree in Mannar include historical narratives showing the height and circumference in relation to the nearby old Church ( St. Lucia’s Church). It also issues warnings: climbing or carving on the tree is a punishable offense. Baobab trees are therefore entangled in tourism interests and cultural and natural heritage conservation initiatives in Sri Lanka. Through these observations I argue that Babobas are re-configured as subject of tourism attraction and conservation taking advantage of its migration history.
Yet it is in the everyday lives around the three Baobab trees that their ontological presence is shaped. In Pungudutheevu, colourful cloth pieces tied to Baobab’s branches as a part of Hindu devotional practice shows how the tree transforms into a site of sacred reverence. The tree, by virtue of its location adjacent to a Hindu temple along with regular human activities gains a valency of sacredness– not with any explicit associations with churches in the region, but because of St. Mary’s statue beneath its canopy and path around the tree for sacred offerings. Local residents sometimes refer to this tree as “Judas’ bag” recalling the mythical tale that Judas betrays Jesus in exchange for 30 silver coins and associates it with Baobab fruit, which typically contains 30 seeds. Here too, the tree is both an element constituting the architecture of sacredness and tourist attraction.Unlike both these trees, the Baobab tree on Delft predominantly exists in the recently imposed celebratory identity of a cultural and environmental heritage artifact. The everyday lives of the trees clearly build their complex identities, ontological relationships and, in effect, collectively shape the nature of the place, both sacred and profane.
Brought across the Indian Ocean by Arab traders, the Baobab tree has taken roots in the Sri Lankan landscape, both ecologically and culturally. The migration of Baobab trees and their everyday lives on three different Islands in Jaffna Peninsula show the collective making of entangled sacred and profane relationships that shape the sense of place around the trees. The ontology of the Baobab trees is inextricably intertwined with tourism, cultural and environmental conservation, and sacredness ascribed by everyday life. The architecture of sacredness constituted by the Baobab trees operates beyond the traditional understanding of sacred architecture as timeless and static. Rather than reinforcing a static notion of sacred architecture, these trees and the social practices surrounding them generate a notion of living and evolving sacredness. The architecture of sacredness, in this case is like the tree itself: it changes, groves, evolves, sustains and dies.
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