黄花梨兄说的极是,黄兄也算是先驱啊。
17世纪就开始与檀香紫檀一并,作为红色羊毛染料,闻名于世了,他的效果是最好的,所以也最为出名,所以非洲小叶紫檀与印度檀香紫檀的英文名也是一样的(英语里面几百年前就这样叫了,african sandalwood)。并且这种贸易18世纪从欧洲一直蔓延到当时荒蛮的美洲。既然,当时荒蛮的美洲都有贸易,我们不能想象它不会进入当时社会比较繁荣的、也开始参与国际贸易的中国。至少,受紫檀文化熏陶的早期华人对此应当趋之若鹜,并当做“紫檀”宝贝,运一些回中国欺骗达官贵人们以获银子。至少,如果我那时在国外,也会这样做。当时,作为染料在西方有名,而“紫檀”在中国也作为皇家宝贝出名,二者没有往来,从商人无孔不入的角度来说,是说不过去的。
The heartwood (camwood) and roots of Baphia nitida yield a red dye that was used locally until recently to dye raffia and cotton textiles. The name ‘camwood’ is most probably derived from the Sierra Leone Temne or Bulom name ‘kam’. It was exported on a large scale to Europe from the 17th century and to North America from the 18th century as one of the main ‘redwood’ dyes for wool, cotton and silk. Camwood was considered by European and American dyers to have a colouring power 3–4 times stronger than the other ‘insoluble’ redwoods they were using. In the wool industry, camwood was not only used to obtain red colours but a large range of reddish to dark brown colours called ‘drabs’, ‘muddy brown’ and ‘London smoke’, mostly in combination with other dyewoods. In small quantities, it was an ingredient of recipes for bronze-green colours and was used as ground dye followed by a logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum L.) dye bath. It was used for dark grey and black colours in the wool-cloth industry until the beginning of the 20th century. It was a major source of bright to dark red colours in the big European cotton-printing industries, e.g. to dye bandanas in ‘mock turkey red’, and it was also used, principally in the United Kingdom, to dye silk pink, ‘acid brown’ and ‘light claret’. In West Africa, powdered heartwood is a familiar red body paint and the paste is much used as a cosmetic for the skin, e.g. in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. As body paint it is considered to have magic powers: Guéré and Krou healers of Côte d’Ivoire use it for religious ceremonies, and in Ghana warriors who had killed an enemy or a leopard painted their foreheads with camwood for ritual dances.
[ 本帖最后由 huafeicd 于 2010-11-9 11:41 编辑 ] |