Cultural roles ArtsThe poet Bashō is named after the Japanese word for a banana plant. The "bashō" planted in his garden by a grateful student became a source of inspiration to his poetry, as well as a symbol of his life and home. The song Yes! We Have No Bananas was written by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn and originally released in 1923 many decades, it was the best-selling sheet music in history. Since then the song has been rerecorded several times and has been particularly popular during banana shortages. The Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto (real name: Mihoko Yoshimoto changed her name because she liked banana flowers. SymbolsBananas are also humorously used as a phallic symbol due to similarities in size and shape. This is typified by the artwork of the debut album of The Velvet Underground, which features a banana on the front cover, yet on the original LP version, the design allowed the listener to 'peel' this banana to find a pink phallus on the inside.
ReligionIn Burma, bunches of green bananas surrounding a green coconut in a tray form an important part of traditional offerings to the Buddha and the Nats.
Evolution/Creation DebateThe banana has been used as an argument for creationism. Allegedly, it is carefully designed for human grasp and convenience by God. However, the influence that humans have had on its development rebuts this argument, as early farmers selected bananas among many alternatives to harvest, and thus were biased toward a fruit that is acceptable to humans, thus resulting in today's domesticated bananas.
