Marula

The Owambo people make the drink omagongo from marula fruit, and its season is celebrated every year at the Omagongo festival in the north.

The marula is a deciduous tree of the cashew family, growing 15–18 m tall, with a broad, rounded crown and grey, flaking bark. The trees are usually dioecious, and the fruits develop only on female trees. The round yellow fruits, the size of a plum, have aromatic, tart flesh very rich in vitamin C and a hard stone containing oily seeds. The fruit is made into drinks, jams and liqueurs, and the seeds yield a valuable cosmetic oil.

Significance in the country

In northern Namibia the marula grows in fields and homesteads, where the trees are spared during land clearing, and Owambo women make the fermented drink omagongo from the fruit. Marula seed oil pressed by rural women’s cooperatives reaches the cosmetics market, including in Europe.

Where it grows

Grows in northern Namibia – in the Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena and Oshikoto regions, in Kavango and Zambezi and in the north of Kunene and Otjozondjupa.

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