Makrut lime (Citrus hystrix), is native to range of places across Southeast Asia and southern China and is commonly known as kaffir lime across the world. However in recent decades there is an ongoing shift back to using one of its traditional names instead (the Thai name, makrut lime) due to political and racial associations. Why?
The Oxford English Dictionary defines kaffir as ranging from “…from being a racial insult considered so offensive in South Africa that its usage is now legally actionable there to being a perfectly neutral name for an ethnic group of South and mainland South-East Asia. Add to these its origins as a pejorative term used by Muslims to refer to non-Muslims and it starts to become apparent that there is a rich and complex story to be told here.”
So there are three distinct, seemingly unrelated origins of the word. The first being the root origin of the word deriving from “…the Arabic word for non-believer or infidel…” used towards non-Muslims of any ethnic background. This wasn’t always actually an insult but evolved to become one. The other two uses are based in Sri Lanka and South Africa and have different present-day meanings.
In Sri Lanka
“Kaffirs are a very small Ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are descendants of African mercenaries, musicians, and labourers taken to what is now Sri Lanka by Portuguese colonists during the period of Portuguese colonial rule on the island.” They are proud to describe themselves as Kaffirs and there are current efforts to preserve and foster what is now a dwindling culture with efforts happening to record their unique language, music and stories before they fade away.
Professor Charmalie Nahallage has studied the Kaffir culture thoroughly. “Kaffir people have been living in Sri Lanka for about five centuries. They were Portuguese negro slaves trained in war that was brought to Sri Lanka from Mozambique via Goa. After the abolition of the slave trade by English in the year 1845 many went back to their own countries but few settled in Puttalam, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Colombo districts. At present two main Kaffir communities can be seen in Sri Lanka one in Batticaloa, Trincomalee Districts and the second group in Puttalam district. Puttalam Kaffirs can be found in Sirambiadiya village.”
In the 1800s Scottish botanist HF Marcmillan (who lived in Sri Lanka for 30 years) is thought to have coined the name kaffir lime in his book ‘Tropical Gardening and Planting’. That’s despite it already having a traditional local name (Kudala-dehi); he named the plant after the Kaffir people who farmed/harvested it for cooking. So it wasn’t a direct link to the use of how the word is used in South Africa and definitely not a racial slur. But you can see from the above how you can technically trace it back to its African origins through the movement of people.
In South Africa
“When asked by the newly arrived Portuguese in the 16th century, the Islamic Arab/Swahili people in the coastal east African cities replied, perhaps dismissively, that the negroid African people in the interior were ‘Kaffirs’. Kaffirs became a general term used by the Portuguese to refer to all Bantu-speaking Africans of eastern and southern Africa. This usage was picked up by the Dutch as they supplanted the Portuguese in the 17th century and brought to South Africa with the founding of Cape Town in 1652.”
So it wasn’t always a racial slur in Africa either. However by the end of the 19th century racism between white settlers and black Africans increased and kaffir evolved to take on similar connotations as the N-word in America. Today in South Africa kaffir is often referred to as the K-word and is “…apartheid-era slang for a black person and one of the worst terms of hate speech in South Africa.” In fact it’s actually a hate crime.
In 2018 a South African former real estate agent, Vicki Momberg was convicted and sentenced to three years jail for a 2016 offense where she repeatedly called black police officers Kaffirs. “…The word is deeply offensive and considered the most racist in South Africa. The state brought a case of crimen injuria against Momberg and a court has sentenced her to three years in jail (one suspended). This makes her the first person in the country to be jailed for this offence. ”
“What began as a reference to an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, who proudly identify themselves as Kaffirs, has gained ugly connotations in other parts of the world.” It’s because of this very point that I believe we can re-embrace one of the traditional names for the lime instead – the Thai name makrut. We live in a global community where how we speak and act can have almost instant ripples throughout the world; in particular online where so many of us hang out. So when people say to me this doesn’t matter, we’re overthinking it and making a problem where there isn’t a problem. I say two things:
- This is an easy change we can make that doesn’t hurt anyone, in fact it might even prevent hurt from occurring.
- This isn’t about taking away any sense of pride the Sri Lanka Kaffir people have in their culture as we know it’s evolved to be separate of the racial slur. This is about providing clarity on language, and re-embracing some of the traditional names.
Yes, this is an incomplete picture of the full history and only represents one view, so take it as you will. But as chef and farmer Palisa Anderson puts it. “I always wondered why the hell it was called kaffir lime anyway. The Thais call it makrut.”
More resources:
- ‘Bio- Cultural Aspect of Kaffir People Living in Sirambiadiya Puttalam District Sri Lanka’, Charmalie Nahallage, Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Sri Jayewardenepura, https://saarcculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2011-12_Charmalie_Nahallage.pdf
- “Kaffir Culture” in Sri Lanka by Kannan Arunasalam, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXvLYV9MZLI
- ‘The Provenance of the term ‘Kafir’ in South Africa and the notion of Beginning‘, Gabeba Baderoon, https://humanities.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/humanities_uct_ac_za/1009/files/2004_MS4.pdf
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