Paul, from your blog I read this:

Chi Han writes that a popular name for the coconut was Yueh-wang-t
'ou, "head of the king of Yueh," a designation explained in terms of a
feud a king of Yueh supposedly had with the king of Champa (southern
Indochina). According to the tradition, an assassin was sent to kill
the king of Yueh and hang his head on a tree, and when he did so, it
immediately turned into a coconut. The king of Champa, angered, had
the coconut cut open to use as a cup, as still done by southerners in
Chi Han's day.

This seems a parallel to what is said to have happened around the
Takla Makan region, when the head of the leader of the Yuehzhie
(Tocharian speakers, possibly Persian-Hindu group?) was turned into a
drinking vessel by their enemy the Dzongni sp. (Mongols). I wonder if
this is two separate similar stories, or if both derived from a single
story and then localized.
DDeden