Cascarilla Mantilla Shaped

Cuba – CU003A
Composition: Mixed
Colour: White
Shape: Shaped

White soft earth with a bit of chemical aftertaste, the taste reminds of an industrial chalk.

This beautiful Cascarilla is made from a mixture of white kaolin clay and chalk, created by a Cascarilla family business in the neighborhood of La Havana called Calabazar / Mantilla, where we traveled with Raúl Meriño Recio. It was provided during a personal meeting for the collection of the Museum of Edible Earth in May 2019.

Cascarilla comes from the traditions of Western Africa. Alongside other practices, the act of eating sacred white earth and using it spiritually was brought to the Caribbean region. The earth was called Efun. One of its purposes was to protect against evil. Cut off from their ancestral lands, people sought an alternative that could achieve the same effects. This came in the form of an herbal powder called cascarilla. Over time, practitioners transitioned from using this powder to using crushed egg shells and white earth.

It is not produced primarily for eating. However, some practitioners put it on the lips and tongue, and then it gets swallowed. According to the Cascarilla producer in Mantilla some people do use it internally for instance as a remedy for stomach problems. Cascarilla powder is popular in Latin American (ex Santeria) and African diaspora (ex Hoodoo) traditions and can usually be purchased in small cultural street shops and markets.

Sources:
● ‘Cascarilla powder’, Witchipedia, 01/11/2019, accessed on 03/02/2022 www.witchipedia.com
● ‘Using Cascarilla For Protection, Purification, and Cleansing’, Original Botanica, 15/07/2015, accessed on 03/02/2022 www.originalbotanica.com

Photo by masharu