Jasmine: The Woman’s Flower
Jasmine, the delicate but powerful flower, has long been part of everyday life and ritual. It carries with it the scent of womanhood and intimacy. In Swahili, we call it asumini, a name that echoes its Persian etymology yāsamin.
This flower is used across the world, especially in regions where the waters of the Indian Ocean and its surrounding seas meet the land, from South and Southeast Asia to the Swahili coast. The jasmine is the national flower of countries like Tunisia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, reflecting its importance across borders. Jasmine often represents beauty, purity, and sacredness. In Thailand, it stands for maternal love; in India, it carries both spiritual and decorative significance. On the Swahili coast, the jasmine is closely tied to feminine beauty and gendered cultural practices. Its scent is familiar to all, but the flower itself is reserved for a few – married women.
Traditionally, jasmine was a marker of the married woman’s home. A house that smells of jasmine is a noble one. Its essential oil is known for its aphrodisiac properties, making the flower no stranger to matrimonial rooms.
Jasmine has similar uses to the kilua, another fragrant flower central to Swahili culture. Jasmines are used to perfume spaces, and they are also ideal for perfuming body oils. You would find them sprinkled over beds to sweeten the smell of the private chambers. Other women place jasmine in coconut oil to enhance the fragrance of the oil. On a larger scale, the flower is used to make traditional, elegant, floral adornments such as the kishada, kikuba and koja.
These adornments may also include various fragrant flowers such as the kilua, ylang ylang, roses and nargis. Still, jasmine and roses make up the bulk of them. Vishada and vikuba are floral brooches worn mostly by married women. Each bride would go off to meet her new husband with a kikuba pinned on her, some being secretly advised to place it between her legs.
Kojas, on the other hand, are garlands draped over the necks of people in special events, mostly those of brides and grooms at weddings. With the rise in local politics, the kojas have increasingly been used during public events to honour dignitaries and guests of significance. The flower adornments would provide a rare opportunity to see men interacting with jasmine in public.
The jasmine bush in East Africa can be found in home gardens for those who have the space for it or in flower pots, for those living in apartments or shared spaces.
The fragrant flowers are picked at dawn or before dusk when the buds are tightly closed to preserve their fragrance. The flower is gently plucked where the stem meets the sepal. The process is mostly done by women and young girls, or by workers, in cases where jasmine is grown for commercial purposes. Picking must be done carefully to avoid bruising the flower.
Within 0-4 hours after picking, the flower stays in bud form. They are stored in cool places to avoid damage. 4-12 hours after harvest, the buds open gradually to release their full scent. If they are to be transported to a distant place, they are placed in the fridge to delay blooming. Naturally, jasmines bloom at night; they open just in time to release their scent where it matters most, on a bridal bed, on the neck of a guest of honour, or inside a cupboard of clothes. 12-24 hours after picking, the flowers start to wilt, lose their moisture, and the scent fade. The petals become limp, slightly brown or translucent.
Like the flower itself, the use of jasmine in our lifetimes has begun to fade. It has not been spared from the impact of globalisation and development that have caught up to the Swahili Coast. Some of the flower adornments that would daintily be made of jasmine are now being made of artificial flowers, with the selling point being that they will last forever. The purpose seems to have shifted from aroma to presentation. In other instances, the vikuba and koja, which were a gift of honour, are now brooches and garlands of money instead of flowers. The sweet scent of jasmine at public events is slowly being replaced with a whiff of capitalism.
Nonetheless, the jasmine is still part of Swahili culture. Whether in a garden, inside a home or at an event, the flower quietly and consistently reflects the presence of women, their labour and their role at the heart of culture.
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