My mom used to do arts and crafts things with gourds. When she passed there were easily over a dozen laying around the house plus a giant one she had started prepping, but never finished.

She was cremated, and the plans were to bury her in the plot she already had next to my dad. State or county requirements, however, that works, allowed us to be the ones to dig the hole to actually place her urn in the ground. When the time came, her five children, their spouses and many grandchildren gathered to dig a great big hole in the ground. We ended up taking the big gourd that she had been working on and placed it in the ground, then as we filled that with dirt we placed her urn inside the gourd. In the end everyone took shovelfuls and handfuls of earth and covered her up.

I can never look at a gourd without thinking of my mom.

Emotional support water bottles are human nature confirmed

They are edible tho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabash

They probably just made really good bongs

It probably has to do with weight. Pottery is pretty heavy and I assume this gourd, when hollowed out, isn't

holy shit is that why a common word for reusable water bottles in french is gourde??? whoa

more durable and lighter than pottery.
gourd does the job better.

There could be some sense figuring first out water containers. Old saying is that human survives few minutes without oxygen, few days without water and few weeks without food. Water > Food

Also as a hunter gatherer, food is around you (berries, roots, game) and you can carry them with you. Drinking water is more scarce and keeping it with you when you move around needs some container.

Consider the luffa next. It’s a squash of sorts that grows on a vine. The inner matrix of the large zucchini looking fruits is the luffa sponge. Zone 10.

Bottle gourds are still eaten pretty regularly in India, and I suspect, other parts of the world too.

Yep, I just checked Wikipedia, and yes, tons of people around the world still eat it.

Portable water is kind of a big deal technologically, IMO. Especially for a persistence predator species (aka humans).

I just found my solution to bringing water to a concert without using a shitty plastic bottle.

At the art fair by my house is a lady who makes gourd earrings, birdhouses and instruments. She even wears a gourd hat. She grows them all herself. I tried to grow a luffa this year inspired by her. It failed because they are hard to germinate. Next year I'm doing a bottle gourd

They were also used as personal flotation devices and floats for fishing nets.

This reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's "bag theory": that the first tool humans developed, was not a weapon which is usually taught, like a spear, but rather, a bag, to carry things: for example for berries we picked. A nice reframe from the violent status quo.

Is that what Gaara kept his sand in?

I kinda want to get a gourd and stencil "Stanley" on the side.

They make great marlin houses