A long-standing tradition

Betel chewing is a common habit in the Maldives. Many Maldivians don't smoke, but almost everyone chews betel. For many islanders, betel is the only luxury they can afford. The betel kernels contain alkaloids that, when mixed with lime, color teeth, gums and saliva reddish-brown. Overindulging in betel can lead to gum disease or even cancer. Just like cigarette smoke, betel chewing is an appetite suppressant.

Betel is actually a collective term, the complete set of which consists of areca nuts (from the areca palm, also called betel nut), betel leaves (from the betel bush, a shrub-like climbing plant), cloves, some lime and possibly some tobacco. The hazelnut-sized nuts (reminiscent of nutmegs) are cut into thin slices with special scissors. You wrap this in the betel leaf together with the clove and lime and push the whole package into your mouth. Experts have their own mixtures, poor people just make do with the nut.

After consumption, the betel mass is usually not swallowed but spit out. Red spots on the streets of Malé or the local islands are evidence of the Maldivians' enjoyment of betel. Incidentally, chewing beteln has hardly any intoxicating or stimulating effect, but in an overdose it can lead to tremors, nausea, confusion or dilated pupils. The brass boxes that can be seen in large numbers in the museum and souvenir shops were once used to store such a betel set. The fact that some of them are lockable shows how concerned people were about their rations. Nowadays, these containers are no longer in use; instead, tightly sealed wooden boxes or something similar are used.