Marilyn Thipthorpe
The people of the east and specially us here in Bangladesh have always been fans of the coconut, from drizzling it into our hair to cooking with it to make amazing desserts; coconuts have always been a part of our life. Out west, the trend has caught on in recent years and they are leaving nothing behind, from dabbing it on acne to having Starbucks launch a coconut-milk latte. But how far is too far? We’re about to find out.
Meet August Engelhardt, a sun stripped German nudist and history’s most radical coconut-er. From 1902 to 1919, Engelhardt lived on a beautiful South Pacific island, eating nothing but the fruit of Cocos nucifera, which he believed was the cure for all mankind’s woes. Except that a coconut mono-diet proved to be a terrible idea. At the end of his life he was reduced to an insane, rheumatic, severely malnourished sack of bones with ulcers on his legs. He was only 44.
Born in Nuremberg in 1875; Engelhardt was among the impressionable youngsters drawn to the back-to-nature Lebensreform movement sweeping through Germany and Switzerland at the time. Its followers yearned after an unspoiled Eden where people ate vegetables and raw food. Engelhardt took it even further: For him, even bread and fruit were contaminated. In his mind, the only immaculate and mystical fleshpot was the coconut, with its snowy white meat and translucent water. In 1902, Engelhardt boarded a ship with his library of books and sailed to Papua New Guinea, where he bought a plantation on the island of Kabakon. He built himself a thatched hut, began to trade in coconut oil and prepared to establish his cult, called Sonnenorden (Order of the Sun).The short-lived cult revolved around two orbs: the coconut and the sun. At least 15 young Germans, seduced by the fantasy of a tropical idyll went out to join him.
It ended calamitously. Several cultists died, while others returned to Germany in a terrible state both mentally and physically. Left alone, Engelhardt was unfazed. “The coconut is the Philosopher’s Stone,” he said. At the end, Engelhardt weighed just 66 pounds and became a freak show for tourists. Imprisoned by Australian soldiers during World War I, he returned to Kabakon after his release and was reportedly found dead on the beach in 1919.