喀麥隆 吃泥土的習俗與吃土成癮的人(上)

Sheila was a child in Cameroon when she first got hooked on kaolin.

希拉（Sheila）最初迷戀上高嶺土，是在喀麥隆（Cameroon），那時候，她還只是小孩。

“I was in primary school,” she says. “My aunt would eat it, and it was often me who had to go and buy it for her.” Sheila is currently studying at university in France. Many people back home, she says, continue to consume this substance every day. Some even become dependent on it.

“那時我還在上小學，”她回憶道：“常常是，姑姑要吃高嶺土，就使喚我去給她跑腿，”目前，希拉正就讀於法國的大學。她指出，在自己的家鄉，如今依然有許多人每天都在攝入這種物質，而有些人甚至對此成癮。

Kaolin isn’t exactly hard to come by – you can purchase it from most Cameroonian markets – but it’s not something that appears on any lists of banned substances. Kaolin isn’t a new street drug. It’s dirt.

鑑於人們在喀麥隆的大部分市場上，都可以買到高嶺土，所以，它算不上有多難得。所有的違禁物品清單上都沒有高嶺土的身影，所以它並不是一種新型的街頭毒品。它就是泥土而已。

Eating dirt, or geophagy, has a long history in Cameroon. Colonial era texts concerning the region describe the behaviour in detail. “I am told that all of [the children] eat it,” writes one perplexed author in Notes on the People of Batanga. “Even those belonging to the mission, who are […] strangers to the sensation of hunger.”

在喀麥隆，吃泥土的習俗（或稱食土癖）由來已久。對於這種行爲，有關該地區殖民地時代的文獻中就有詳細的描述記載。在《巴坦加人研究札記》（Notes on the People of Batanga）中，一位茫然不知所措的作者寫道：“我聽說，所有的孩子都吃它，甚至連那些來自駐外使團的孩子們都不例外，後者可（……）從未經歷過飢餓感的折磨”。

According to Sera Young, resident geophagy expert at Cornell University in the US, it has a long history around the world.

美國康奈爾大學食土癖領域的住校專家塞拉•楊（Sera Young）指出，食土癖遍及世界各地，且歷史悠久。

Young has spent nearly two decades getting her head round this behaviour, and in a comprehensive study analysing nearly 500 historical and contemporary accounts from around the world, she and her fellow researchers documented its global prevalence.

楊已經花了將近二十年的時間來研究這種行爲。在一項綜合性研究中，她和研究所的同僚們分析了來自世界各地的近500條史料記載和當代記述，揭示了食土癖在全球範圍內的分佈情況。

Geophagy has been reported in countries as diverse asArgentina, Iran and Namibia, and certain trends keep appearing in the team’s analysis. Consumption seems to be higher in the tropics, and two groups tend to gravitate towards it in particular: children (predictably, perhaps) and pregnant women.

據報道顯示，食土癖已出現在阿根廷、伊朗、納米比亞等形形色色的國家中。而且，在研究團隊的分析中，某些變化趨勢在持續不斷地顯現。熱帶地區的黏土食用量看起來更高；而且，黏土對兩個羣體的吸引力尤其顯著：小孩（或許，這是預料之中的）和孕婦。

Of course, the lower rates seen in other countries could well be a result of underreporting owing to cultural taboos.

當然，見於其他國家的較低食用率，很可能是當地人迫於文化禁忌而少報漏報的結果。

“These non-food cravings happen a lot, and they happen right under our noses,” says Young, citing a case she heard of a renowned opera singer in New York whose dark secret was the desire to eat dirt during pregnancy. Young’s own interest in geophagy was piqued while undertaking field work in rural Tanzania. “I was conducting interviews with pregnant women about iron deficiency anaemia,” she says. “I was sitting on the floor of this woman’s house, and I asked her what she liked to eat during pregnancy, and she said: ‘Twice a day, I take earth from the wall of my house and I eat it.’”

楊指出：“對這些非食品類物質的癖好層出不窮，並且就發生在我們的眼皮子底下。”對此，楊援引了一個親身聽聞的實例：在紐約，有位著名歌劇演唱家藏了個不可告人的祕密——她懷孕的那陣子，非常想吃土。楊在坦桑尼亞農村進行田野調查期間的所見所聞，挑起了她本人對食土癖的研究興趣。她說：“那會兒，我正在做訪談，問孕婦們有關缺鐵性貧血的問題。當時，我就坐在這名女子家的地板上，問她懷孕期間都喜歡吃些啥，她說：‘我從自家的牆壁上扒土下來吃，一天吃兩次。’”

Understandably, Young was shocked. “Eating earth goes against everything we are trained to do,” she says.

可想而知，楊當時就震驚了。她表示：“吃黏土這種做法，與我們平時所接受的教育是完全相反的。”

Indeed, Western medicine has traditionally regarded geophagy as pathological, classing it as a form of pica, the condition also attributed to those who intentionally ingest such harmful substances as glass or bleach.

的確，西醫一向認爲，食土癖是病態的，屬於異食癖的一種症狀。除此之外，有意識地往體內攝入諸如玻璃、漂白劑等有毒有害物質的行爲，也屬於異食癖的症狀。

And yet clearly in Cameroon there is no taboo surrounding the practice. Similarly, Young describes her surprise when, workingin Kenya, she found she could buy packets of earth in a range of flavours, including black pepper and cardamom. In the US, the state of Georgia is renowned for the quality of its white dirt (there’s even a website). While packets are labelled ‘Novelty Item: Not Intended for Human Consumption’, everyone knows their true purpose.

可是，顯而易見，在喀麥隆，吃土並不是什麼禁忌行爲。楊形容說，同樣令自己大吃一驚的是，在肯尼亞工作期間，她發現竟可以買到一包包口味各異的黏土，其中包括黑胡椒味和豆蔻味。而在美國，佐治亞州也因其出產優質的白色泥土而遠近馳名（更有甚者，這種白土還有一個專屬的網站）。儘管這些白土的包裝上都註明了“新奇的小玩意兒：不適宜人類食用”，但它們真正的用途，人盡皆知。

Young asks me if there are any African grocery stores near where I live, in South London. I say yes.

對於身居倫敦南部（South London）的我，塞拉•楊詢問在本人的居所附近有沒有非洲人開的雜貨店，回答是肯定的。

“Just go into one and ask for pregnancy clay. They’ll definitely have it.”

“你只管走進其中一家，說要買‘孕期黏土’。想都不用想，他們絕對有賣。”