1 ORIGINS OF CACAO: Chocolate Origins: Cacao and Mesoamerican Ancestors
1 ORIGINS OF CACAO:
Chocolate Origins: Cacao and Mesoamerican Ancestors
Chocolate originated in South America (Mesoamerica) in areas near Ecuador (Lecture 3) and was cultivated and used for various reasons by many early South American civilizations over at least five thousand years, according to archaeological and cultural evidence.
Cacao was first known to have been grown by the archaic Mayo Chinchipe people five thousand years ago. It was grown in time by the Olmec about two thousand years ago, and then the Maya and Teotihuacan up to over a thousand years ago. Following after came the Toltec and Mexica in about 1,000 - 1500 CE. (Lecture 3)
What was the usage of cacao by these various peoples of Mesoamerica? What effect did cacao have on their societies? What made cacao so special?
Cacao was known to have grown in the mesoamerican area of Mexico and Central Mexico, within the range of 20 degrees on either side of the equator. (Lecture 3) This makes cacao a plant with a very specific growing range. It also has specific needs such as growing in the shade of taller trees.
Cacao was used for many different cultural and economical reasons. Cacao was used as a social qualifier, a commodity used for money, and for ceremonies and social events, and for burying with their deceased people.
For example, in Keith Prufer’s article, “ “Chocolate in the Underworld Space of Death: Cacao Seeds from an Early Classic Mortuary Cave.”, he stated, “ In 1995 a small bowl containing five cacao seeds was recovered from a burial in a remote cave in southwestern Belize…a complex funerary offering accompany…” In this instance, cacao was used to send a person off into the afterlife as a ritual item and perhaps as an expression of something they liked in life. Ritual was very important in Mesoamerican life, as ritual is in most cultures. Burying their dead with special items to take into the afterlife was important to the tribal peoples.
Cacao was a valuable item, used as a commodity to pay people, or in trade for other items. A person could be paid in cacao beans for work done or items sold. In Blake Edgar’s article, “The Power of Chocolate”, he writes that, “A 1545 document written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and other Central Mexican peoples, shows that cacao…a turkey was worth 200 cacao seeds, a tamales was with one, and the daily wage of a porter at the time was 100 cacao seeds.” (Edgar 20). Cacao used as money was also used in more ancient times due to its value.
The use of cacao beans in drinks of chocolate was also used to signify social status because it was so valuable and complicated to process. Someone of elite higher status would offer chocolate to someone of lesser status and confer honor upon them. The elite would hold banquets to celebrate and common people would participate, and all would drink chocolate.
“...among mesoamerican cultivars, only cacao contains theobromine, so detecting this in ancient pottery would the mean the artifacts once contained cacao.” (Edgar 21) Proof of cacao as a chocolate drink has been found in ancient pottery, indicating that the process of turning cacao into chocolate was known. Images on pottery of social interactions show the sharing of chocolate in distinctive pots also found in burials. Some pots show pictograms of the cacao tree as a tree of life with a cacao god with cacao beans hanging off of him. (Lecture 3).
Chemical testing of cacao has shown that cacao has higher caffeine content than other natural products in South America. However, theobromine is only found in cacao. “The compound belongs to the same class of alkaloids as caffeine, which is also found in cacao, although theobromine is ten times as abundant in the fruit…only cacao contains theobromine…” (Edgar 21).
The usage of cacao by the various peoples of Mesoamerica had varied use in ritual, meaning, socializing, status, ceremonies, burials, and celebratory occasions, so it was very important to Mesoamerican people. The effect that cacao had on their societies was vast - use as a commodity and a social and ritual tool had widespread effects of archaic usage. Cacao was special because of its specific origin in Mesoamerica, the chemical theobromine individual to it, and the effect it had on a person so that it was held in high esteem and used for special purposes.
Chocolate originated in Mesoamerica in areas near Ecuador (Lecture 3) and was cultivated and used for various reasons by many early South American civilizations over at least five thousand years, according to archaeological and cultural evidence.
Bibliography
Edgar, Blake. “The Power of Chocolate.” Archaeology, vol. 63, no. 6, Archaeological Institute of America, 2010, pp. 20–25. https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.csun.edu/stable/41780626
Juarez-Dappe, Patricia. History of Chocolate Class 429. Fall 2023. California State University Northridge. Lecture 3. csun.edu.
Prufer, Keith M., and W. Jeffrey Hurst. “Chocolate in the Underworld Space of Death: Cacao Seeds from an Early Classic Mortuary Cave.” Ethnohistory, vol. 54, no. 2, 2007, pp. 273–301, https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2006-063.
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