The Early Origins of Shea Butter

 Written by Prachel Carter

Shea Butter, or Butyrospermum parkii, has been around for many centuries.  It was created when someone had idea of taking nuts from the fruit of the shea tree, crushing and boiling them, skimming off the rich fat from the top and cooling it to make shea butter.  The trees used to make the butter have flourished in Africa for thousands of years and attempts to cultivate them elsewhere have been hugely unsuccessful.  Being naturally nourishing and full of vitamins for both the inside and outside of the body an ingenious person, or group of people, discovered this liquid gold a long time ago and it is still widely used today. 

More than likely, there is an oral history of the creation of shea butter that can be found by interviewing the elders of shea butter producing villages from West to East Africa.  This is where most of the shea trees grow.  There are probably hundreds of stories that vary from village to village, with every account of the beginnings of shea being as fascinating as the shea butter itself.  It has even been recorded that the Queen of Sheba and Cleopatra used Shea Butter.  However, we still do not know who created shea butter although there have been written accounts of its use, as early as the 1300's, recorded by frequent explorers to Africa.

Many of history's great travelers recorded their observations about Africa's culture and their use of Shea butter. Ibn Batouta was a 14th century historian and ambassador entrusted by the Morocco sultan with a diplomatic mission at the court of Mali. He traveled through West Africa in 1348 and reported the various uses of Shea butter.  [M. Pobeda and L .Sousselier:  Shea Butter – The Revival of an African Wonder]

In 1830, French explorer Roger Caillie trekked across Africa and reported that, "the indigenous people trade with it, they eat it and rub their bodies with it; they also burn it to make light; they assure me that it is a very beneficial remedy against aches and pains and sores and wounds for which it is applied as an unguent". An unguent is a soothing preparation spread on wounds, burns, rashes, abrasions or other topical injuries (i.e. damage to the skin). [Research and development of the shea tree and its products University of Ghana/CRIG Substation at Bole; Julius Najah Fobil]

However, the most extensive recorded observations of Shea Butter came from a Scottish explorer named Mungo Park in the late 1790's.  Park wrote a book entitled, "Life and travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa."  The book contains the earliest accounts of Park's encounters with Shea Butter, and describes how it was prepared and how the people of the ancient kingdom of Bambarra, located in Mali, used it. Shea Butter is oftentimes referred to as "Vegetable Butter" throughout Park's memoir.

In the early part of the book, Park describes how Shea-toulou (translated as "tree butter") is extracted by boiling the kernels, or nuts, of the fruit.  He also states that the butter has a similar consistency to real butter, made from cow's milk, and could be a comparable substitute to it.  He goes on to describe how the demand for shea butter is high because it has so many uses, one of which included oiling the bodies of wrestlers before a match, a popular sport within the West African villages.  

Towards the middle of his journey, Park writes more extensively about his shea butter observations: 

"About eight o'clock, we passed a large town called Kabba, situated in the midst of a beautiful and highly cultivated country; bearing a greater resemblance to the centre of England, than to what I should have supposed had been the middle of Africa. The people were everywhere employed in collecting the fruit of the Shea trees, from which they prepare the vegetable butter, mentioned in former parts of this work.

These trees grow in great abundance all over this part of Bambarra. They are not planted by the natives, but are found growing naturally in the woods; and in clearing wood land for cultivation, every tree is cut down but the Shea. The tree itself very much resembles the American oak; and the fruit, from the kernel of which, being first dried in the sun, the butter is prepared by boiling the kernel in water, has somewhat the appearance of a Spanish olive.

The kernel is enveloped in a sweet pulp under a thin green rind; and the butter produced from it, besides the advantage of its keeping the whole year without salt, is whiter, firmer, and, to my palate, of a richer flavour than the best butter I ever tasted made from cow's milk.

The growth and preparation of this commodity seem to be among the first objects of African industry in this and the neighbouring states; and it constitutes a main article of their inland commerce. [Excerpt from "Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa]

Park also recorded other uses for shea butter.  He stated that the Africans are "better surgeons than physicians" and use the butter for dressing wounds.  It was also mixed with a popular staple of that time, cous cous, which is African pasta, for the evening meal.  

Other uses that are worthy of mentioning were rubbing it on freshly caught fish "to prevent them from contracting fresh moisture" and soaking gold in shea butter to make it more heavy.  The gold pieces were dipped in shea by the holders of the gold and then weighed, giving it the appearance that it was worth more by weight, thus resulting in a higher price paid for it.

Park eventually died from drowning during a conflict on the Niger River.  However, the scientific name Butyrospermum parkii was given to the shea tree in honor of the Scottish explorer Mungo Park.

© 2010 Soulshea