CUMINUM CYMINUM, Linn. History, Uses, &c.

The use of cumin as a spice and medicine is of the highest antiquity, and appears to have spread from the cradle of civilization in Egypt to Arabia, Persia, India and China. Cumin is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, it is the κὺμινον of the Greeks, and Theophrastus (H. P. IX.) tells us that it was the custom to utter curses when sowing it (probably to avert the evil eye). Dioscorides (iii., 61,) calls it κὺμινον ἥμερον, and notices its medicinal properties; in the same chapter he mentions another kind of cumin, “the king’s cumin of Hippocrates,” which the Arabians identify with ajowan, and in the next chapter two kinds of wild cumin. Popular allusions to cumin are common in the writings of the Greeks and Romans, cumin and salt was a symbol of friendship (Plut. Symp. 5, 10, 1). Pliny tells us that students eat it to make themselves look pale and interesting. Greek writers mention a κὺμινο-δοκον or cumin-box which was placed on the table like a salt-cellar. Flückiger and Hanbury trace its use during the Middle Ages, when it appears to have been much valued in Europe. Mannhardt (Baumkultus der Germanen) says that bread was spiced with cumin to protect it from the demons, and De Gubernatis (Myth. des Plant.) states that it is used for the same purpose in Italy, and on account of its supposed retentive powers is given to domestic animals to keep them from straying, and by girls to their sweethearts for the same reason.