Cacao: Quetzalcóatl’s gift to the children of the sun

Myra Heideman
"The god of the moon and winds, Quetzalcóatl, descended to earth to teach men science, arts and to give them a valuable plant that he had stolen from his brother gods: the queachahuatl, the tree of cacao. These brother gods took revenge on Quetzacóatl by embarrassing him in front of men to force him to abandon men and return to his land of light. Therefore cacao only flourishes in faraway lands, the places where Quetzalcóatl spent his last hours.” This legend, taken from the oral indigenous tradition, brings us to the fascinating history of cacao. Those faraway lands are the upper basin of the Amazon River where cacao was first found some 3,500 years ago. Its cultivation and domestication, though, is said to be started in what now is southern Mexico and Guatemala. Archaeological evidence of systematic cultivation around 1000 BC is found in Cacahoatán, Chiapas.

Shrouded in an aura of mythology and magic, each indigenous culture had its own version of the history of cacao. This the Aztec (the ruling power from the 14th century until the arrival of the Spaniards), version: “A princess left behind while her husband was off defending the empire, had to guard a great treasure. She was assaulted by enemies who forced her to tell the secret place of the hidden treasure. As a revenge for her silence, they killed her. From the shed blood of the faithful princess the cacao plant was born; the bitter taste being a metaphor for the suffering of love. It was Quetzalcoatl’s gift for faithfulness paid with death”.

The numerous legends about cacao leave little doubt about the importance of this delightful bean in the prehispanic cultures. It was first discovered and cultivated in the eastern southern part of Mesoamerica in times of the Olmecs (1200 -900 BC) and it played an important part in the classic period of the Mayans (250 – 900 AD). As in the case of maize, the development of its cultivation ran parallel to civil society and to the different forms of state organization. The regions that produced cacao were the ones where ceremonial centers were developed, like Veracruz, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Morelos, Guerrero and Michoacán. Cacao was present in every aspect of life in the different societies of Mesoamerica. Apart from being a nutritional and medical product, it served an economic purpose. The seeds of the cacao tree were used as coins. Up until then coins as such did not exist, the only means of exchange was the tregue. To get an idea of value of the cacao seeds in the Mayan period, a slave cost ten beans, and a visit to a prostitute was about twelve. The beans were exchanged for fine feathers, beads of jade or any other valuable product.

Like all desirable objects, the cacao bean was also object of falsification, using all kinds of material like filling them with mud in order to make them look bigger or they simply tried to fool you by giving the nut of the avocado instead. The use of cacao beans as coins diminished over the years. In the colonial period it couldn’t compete with the Spanish Real. In remote areas, however, it survived as a coin until the mid 19th century.
As a medicine it was applied to a variety of diseases and it had a therapeutic function. Shamans prescribed it to lighten abdominal pains and used it in cases of poisoning. It was a medicine for kidney problems, it helped the digestion and served to fight typhoid fever. But in any case, for both the healthy and the sick, then and now, it heightens sexual pleasure.

Olmecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Aztecs and almost all the ancient Mesoamerican cultures recognized divine entities in cacao. The botanists took over this idea by naming it Theobroma (food of the gods). Cacao was therefore inevitably related to religious rites. Symbolically, the plant represented the heart in almost all the Mesoamerican cultures. Its etymological origin implies a certain relation with human sacrifices to the gods. In a song found by the monk Bernardino de Sahagún, the word cacáhuatl is used, literally, as the heart of sacrifices. The drink chocolate was the indispensable drink to conclude the ceremonies of religious sacrifices. The Mayan people honored their god of the merchants and of the cacao cultivators in particular, Ek Chuac, (ek means black and star in Yucateco) in a very special way: In the month Muan, the fifteenth month of the Mayan year, the whole town came to the plantation to witness the sacrifice of a dog that had spots on its skin the color of cacao. They burned incense for their worship, after which they offered a blue iguana, bird feathers and gave a leaf of cacao to each official, so that Ek Chuac would make it propicious harvest.

A traditional Mayan way to prepare the drink was mixing a bit of peeled cacao, with another seed of the ceiba, adding water, mix the substance and let it rest a little while. The perfumed part that collected on the top was separated and the liquid was boiled with maize. When it cooled off, the perfumed part was added, mixed again and served cold with aromatic flowers, vanilla and sometimes chili.

The drink was not for everyone, though, women were excluded from enjoying this recipe. During the Aztec Empire only the noble or distinguished warrior had the right to consume this energetic and curing drink. The rest of the population was only allowed to drink it during certain ceremonies and even then they required special permission. Drinking chocolate without this permission would simply cost them their lives.

After the Conquista, the drink became accessible to all parts of society. In Mexico it was extremely popular amongst the monks and nuns since it was the only stimulating product allowed.

The Conquista and cacao’s way to Europe

Of course the Spanish conquistadores had to be highly interested in this magical ingredient. Columbus’ first contact with cacao was during an encounter with a group of merchants who presented it to him as it were the equivalent of gold. Hernán Cortes was not interested at first; it was in 1520 when he came to understand the value of the plant, when he realized the bean could solve his financial problems and help him obtain gold. He returned to Spain taking the fruits of the cacao tree with him that soon caught the interest of botanists. It was only a few years later that the Spaniards dared to try the new Mesoamerica drink. In 1585, the first load of cacao crossed the Atlantic to the Iberian Peninsula, which is the time when the word “chocolate” was first introduced. Before the Conquista the drink was called cacahuatl.

In Europe, this powerful delicacy underwent all sorts of experiments, it was Charles V’s (Carlos I of Spain) idea to add sugar and later all sorts of spices recently discovered in Asia by the Europeans, such as aniseed, almonds, pepper, cinnamon. In that time, it also became a hot drink in Europe, while in Mesoamerica it would only be drunk cold until the seventeenth century. The drink was considered a luxury product and only accessible for the noble and privileged.

The importation of cacao became so important for the Spanish economy that they tried to protect their business by prohibiting exportation of cacao to any country other than their own, but the Dutch smuggled the product by buying clandestinely from Venezuela. This business became so important that

Amsterdam ended up being the general deposit of cacao. At the end of the 17th century, Spain didn’t receive a single grain of cacao from Venezuela, which exported about 3.3 million kg. Between 1706 and 1722 not one boat transported cacao to the Iberian Peninsula; the “owners” of America now needed the Dutch to get their chocolate, a commodity that had become indispensable to them.

Chocolate today

Oaxaca is unthinkable without chocolate, you can simply not leave the city without having tried a tejate oaxaquena. Visit one of the Mayordomo stores in the centre of town and get lost in the delicious world of chocolate.

“Mexican sweet”, the dark almond that accumulated in the indigenous villages of Mesoamerica as money and basic component of its nutritious drink; fruit of the tropical tree that subjugated the palate of the European aristocracy and that converted into the essential ingredient of pastry until today; all that and more was and is cacao, the splendid gift of America to the world.