420 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



are introduced and the whole is made up into sticks or cakes, usually 

 cylindrical or spindle-shaped, about 5 to 8 inches long and weigh- 

 ing about 12 to 15 ounces. These sticks are then dried in the sun or 

 by the fire and become so hard and resistant that it requires an axe 

 to break them. They are then packed in broad leaves of banana-like 

 plants and put into baskets or bags. If protected from moisture this 

 paste will keep in good condition for several years. In the Province 

 of Para the jawbone of a fish called Piracurii, covered with sharp 

 processes, is used as a rasp for grating it. 



Humboldt and Bonpland state that in southern Venezuela the 

 powdered seeds are mixed with mandioca flour, wrapped in plantain 

 leaves, and allowed to ferment until it acquires a saffron-yellow 

 color. This yellow paste, dried in the sun and diluted with water, 

 is taken as a morning drink like tea or coffee. It is bitter, stimu- 

 lating and tonic in its effects. Humboldt did not like its flavor, but 

 Spruce, who drank it in the form of a cooling beverage prepared 

 from the pure paste with cold water and sugar, liked its flavor and 

 found that its effects were very much like those of tea. At Cuyaba 

 it was served in taverns as a refreshing drink, and in various parts 

 of South America Spruce found it to be a popular remedy for sick 

 headache ( hemicrania ) .^ 



CHOCOLATE. 

 (Plates 16 and 17.) 



Chocolate, made from the seeds of Theobronna cacao^ is undoubt- 

 edly of Central American origin. It was known to the inhabitants 

 of Mexico and Central America long before the Discovery, and after 

 the Conquest it soon foimd its way to Europe and to the most remote 

 parts of the earth. No'vestiges of the seeds or pods of cacao or any 

 representation of them on funeral vases have been found in the 

 prehistoric graves of the Peruvian coast region; and so rich are 

 these graves in remains of fruits and vegetables as well as in repre- 

 sentations of such objects in terra cotta that the inference is that 

 cacao was unknown to the aboriginal inhabitants of that part of the 

 world. Prescott's imaginary picture of the Peruvian coast adorned 

 with plantations of cacao is wholly without foundation in fact. 



Padre Cobo, in his Historia del Nuevo Mundo, tells of the high 

 esteem in which cacao was held in Mexico : 



This fruit is so highly prized by the Indians of Nueva Esparia that it serves 

 for money in that kingdom, and with it they buy in the markets and from trav- 

 eling venders small objects, such as tortillas of maize, fruits, and vegetables; 

 and I on the roads of that kingdom bought such things many times with cacao. 

 Even in the city of Mexico they give as alms to the poor Indians two or three 

 cacaos, as though they were money. 



But the reason why these cacao-almonds are principally esteemed is for 

 a drink called chocolate, which the Indians made of them and which now the 



^ Spruce, Richard. Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, 2 : 448-453. 1908. 



