SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY 
THE USE AND ORIGIN OF YERBA 
MATE 
ADDRESS BY 
CAPT a) 4 JOY Cle Oeb.E... 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
Infusions from vegetable products are common throughout the world, 
but the particular infusion with which this paper deals is that procured 
from the leaves and shoots of the Ilex paraguayensis, a shrub indigenous 
to Paraguay and to southern Brazil. After a process of drying, aided by 
fire, hot water is poured on the broken or powdered leaf, and the infusion 
is imbibed through a tube of silver or of native bambu. From the 
centre of its origin it spread rapidly, like all valuable food products, to 
Argentina, Chile and Peru, and, especially since the war, when many 
South American contingents were engaged, it has become more familiar 
in Europe than formerly. 
__ The particular virtue of the drink is that it contains little or no tannin, 
combines favourably with a meat diet, and can be repeatedly refreshed 
by hot water without deleterious effects. In South America, especially 
amongst the Gaucho class, it used to take the place of fruit and vegetables, 
for it is an antiscorbutic of considerable value. Thousands of tons are 
used in South America annually. 
_ Mixed with cold water, it provides a very refreshing beverage, but the 
normal method of taking the drink isin the hot infusion. When lukewarm 
‘it is regarded as a violent aperient. Two appliances are used, the maté, 
a gourd or silver cup in which the decoction is prepared, and a tube, the 
bombilla, through which the infusion is drunk. 
_ The word for the receptacle (maté) became transferred to the leaf and 
the drink; both are now generally known under that name, especially 
in Europe. 
_ The first mention of the drink in published literature occurs in a book 
y Nicolas Duran, a Jesuit missionary in Paraguay in the early seventeenth 
century. Duran travelled through the province of Guaira and visited 
the Jesuit missions at Villa Rica, San Xavier, Loreto and San Ignacio ; 
all these regions were, at that time, centres of yerba maté preparation and 
of distribution. 
Translated from the Latin, Duran writes as follows : 
‘The most severe labour to which the Indians are put consists in being 
‘Sent by their masters to Maracaiu, to collect the foliage of certain trees 
| Owing in the mountains and forests. These trees, not unlike laurels, but 
. 
: 
G 
