Niceffo [Musaceae]

Niceffo1  frutto perenne senza zapparlo, adacquarlo. Sempre mena figli in [ogni] tempo. Hà frutti in un racemo saranno da 100 e piú. come salcicciotti è arbole alto, di scorza [. . .] le foglie servono per scriverí. Lunge [sic] la foglia un huõ e mezzo.

Niceffo fruit, perennial without hoeing, watering. It always makes sprouts in [. . .] time. It has fruits like little sausages in bunches of maybe 100 or more. It is a tall tree, with [. . .] bark. The leaves are used to write. The leaf is one man and a half long. 

  • 1
    The friars make a distinction between Niceffo and Banana in their writings, referring to two local categories of fruits from the Musaceae family. See Cavazzi and Alamandini, Istorica descrizione, 35. Andrea de Pavia, Viaggio Apostolico alle Missioni dell’Africa del P.re Andrea da Pavia Pred.re Capuccino, 1685-1702, 1692-1702, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 3165: f 81r, Madrid. Matheus Cardoso talks about “micifos” in 1624 see António Brásio, José da Silva Costa, and Brás Correia, História do Reino do Congo: ms. 8080 da Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1969), 37. Joseph Pellicer de Tovar, Mission evangelica al Reyno de Congo por la serafica religion de los Capuchinos (Madrid: Domingo Garcia i Morras, 1649), 53. It appears as Mizefhos with mention of the size of the leaves “big enough to shade any sized man,” the crucifix in its flesh, and its identity as the tree of the garden of Eden in a late-sixteenth-century anonymous manuscript, unknown, Description of the kingdom of Kongo, 1590s?, Codici Panciatichiani Panciatichiano 200, 163r-172v: 165r, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Florence. See also the unpaginated vocabulary of words from Matamba in Antonio da Gaeta and Francesco Maria Gioia, La maravigliosa conversione alla santa fede di Cristo della regina Singa e del svo regno di Matamba nell’Africa meridionale, descritta con historico stile (Naples: G. Passaro, 1669). Other mentions are found in António de Oliveira de Cadornega and José Matias Delgado, História geral das guerras angolanas, 1680[-1681] (Lisbon: Agência-Geral das Colónias Divisão de Publicações e Biblioteca, 1940), 3:372. “Niceffos” and their long leaves that could cover a man (in Brazil) and the crucifix inside appear in Dionigi de Carli da Piacenza and Michel Angelo de Guattini da Reggio, Viaggio del P. Dionigi de’ Carli da Piacenza e del P. Michel Angelo De’Guattini da Reggio Capuccini, Predicatori e missionari Apostolici nel Regno del Congo (Reggio: Prospero Vedrotti, 1671), 49; Dionigi de Carli da Piacenza and Michel Angelo de Guattini da Reggio, Viaggio del P. M. Angelo de Guattini da Reggio et del p. D. de Carli da Piacienza cappuccini (Bologna: Gioseffo Longhi, 1674), 64-65.

Notes

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