Cotuit Salt Marsh with Egrets

My sum­mer home over­looks a salt marsh on Cape Cod. We love this marsh for many rea­sons: beau­ti­ful vis­tas, abun­dant marine and birdlife, invig­o­rat­ing air, and con­stant sea breezes. The sea air is full of salt.

We curse salt’s destruc­tive power: how lit­tle time it takes to cor­rode metal objects (deck fur­ni­ture, door knobs, lanterns or win­dow frames) that face the marsh and the bay beyond it.

But we also rec­og­nize that salt is essen­tial to life.

Now that I’m read­ing Salt: A World His­tory, I have a much greater appre­ci­a­tion for the impact salt has had on civ­i­liza­tion and com­merce. Not to men­tion lan­guage (words such as “salary” or even “sol­dier,” for exam­ple).

The Power of Salt

Photo cour­tesy of Orleans His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety

Once upon a time, for those who con­trolled access to it, salt fueled wealth cre­ation, financed wars, inspired long and ardu­ous trade routes. Peo­ple enslaved oth­ers to help in the mak­ing or trans­port of salt.

Salt was so valu­able that cities were founded near salt mines or salt­works; wars were fought to con­trol salt, or get access to it. Salt was the basis of the first-known monop­oly (in China thou­sands of years ago).

Even here on Cape Cod sea salt was once a source of wealth — in the 18th and early 19th cen­turies when the British block­aded New Eng­land dur­ing two wars. Their block­ade drove resource­ful Cape Cod­ders to cre­ate their own sources of salt when they could no longer trade with Europe for it.

Thanks to plen­ti­ful wind, sun and salt water, there were almost 900 salt­works on Cape Cod by the 1830s, the hey­day of salt­mak­ing in this tiny region.

From Power to Symbolism

Because of its eco­nomic value and intrin­sic prop­er­ties, salt has taken on many sym­bolic mean­ings over the cen­turies, such as:

Loy­alty and friend­ship are sealed with salt because its essence never changes.… In both Islam and Judaism, salt seals a bar­gain because it is immutable.

— Mark Kurlan­sky, in Salt: A World His­tory, © 2002

Other sym­bolic mean­ings include:

• The keep­ing of promises or covenants with God (Judaism)
• Bless­ing a new home
• Asso­ci­a­tions with longevity and per­ma­nence (think: mum­mies)
• Pro­tec­tion from evil spir­its or the evil eye

It’s also asso­ci­ated with wis­dom in some reli­gions:

In Chris­tian­ity, salt is asso­ci­ated not only with longevity and per­ma­nence, but by exten­sion, with truth and wis­dom.

— Mark Kurlan­sky, in Salt: A World His­tory, © 2002

It used to be high praise to say a per­son was “worth his salt.” Cen­turies ago your stature was indi­cated by where you sat, rel­a­tive to the salt­cel­lar on the table. Pow­er­ful or impor­tant folk sat “above the salt.”

Although salt no longer com­mands high prices nor dri­ves mankind to war, it’s still essen­tial to life.

On cloudy days like this, look­ing out over a salt marsh and the herons fish­ing there, it’s good to be reminded of what’s truly valu­able in life. It’s not just the boat­ing…