IT’S A FACT

MARABUNTA MEMORIES
By James Sydney

Nostalgic and Possibly Painful No one who has lived in the Caribbean would have failed to make the acquaintance of the marabunta. This species of wasp is solid red-brown or black in color and hangs its nest in the eaves of buildings such as houses, schools and churches and other sheltered places. The marabunta also sometimes lives in the branches of trees. Generally marabuntas mind their own business, but inevitably they make contact with people, with mostly painful consequences to the people.

Marabuntas build their nests and quietly do their housework. The nests are built of a coarse, papery material, prepared by masticating wood fiber. They go out to feed on insects, grubs, or spiders. Marabunta eggs are deposited in the compartments, or cells, of the nest, where they develop into larvae and then pupae, emerging as adults.

The marabunta is narrow in the waist. Its thorax is attached to the abdomen by a mere stalk. It has two pairs of membranous wings, and a mouth adapted for biting or sucking. The female has a stinger with which she paralyzes prey, and inflicts pain on humans.

Marabuntas are best left alone. Disturb them, and they dart towards you and attack you. When a marabunta stings, it injects a venomous fluid under the skin, resulting in severe pain and ugly swelling. Its stinger is like a lance and can be used repeatedly.

Unfortunately, the fragrance in your cologne, perfume, hairdressing or scented soap can offend marabuntas, in which case they would regard the wearer as an enemy. Brightly colored clothing may also provoke an attack.

People stung by marabuntas generally try to remove the stinger and apply ice to the skin to reduce swelling. The pain and inflammation generally subside within a few hours. However, a small number of people who suffer severe allergic reactions to wasp stings may need to seek medical attention.

One of the terrifying things that can happen to you is to have a marabunta get into the car you are driving. The best thing, in such a situation, is to pull over and open the car windows to allow the marabunta to leave on its own.

Many people don’t mind sharing space with marabuntas – especially those people who believe that if marabuntas build their nests in a house, the occupants will become rich. But there comes a time when one wants to get rid of the marabuntas. They may have become just too many near your living area, or perhaps someone just got stung.

One way to get rid of marabuntas is to drench the nest with, say, a bucket of water when the marabuntas are quiet, making sure to immediately get out of the way of the few that invariably escape the drenching. Most of them just fall to the ground with wet useless wings unable to fly for a while, and easy to kill.

Soapy water has a greater wetting effect. Adding kerosene, easily available in the old days, made the drenching more deadly.

Perhaps the most lethal way is using fire. Rags doused with kerosene are set alight and applied to the nest. If this is artfully done, very few marabuntas would survive.

It used to be that, after marabunta nests are destroyed, the nests containing the larvae were dislodged and fed to chickens in the yard. In addition, borrowing from Amerindian traditional beliefs, the dead adult marabuntas were mixed into the food of the dog to make the dog "cross", meaning aggressive.

This article will be posted on the Web site SILVERTORCH.COM shortly. Visit SILVERTORCH.COM for facts of interest to the people of the Caribbean –the serious, the interesting, the funny