Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
an report that up to sixteen thousand balls were produced in specialized craft towns for
regional trade and tribute. 18
The thick cloudlike smoke produced by burning caucho was used as incense (think
perhaps of burning tires), evocative of cumulus, was offered especially to the rain
gods. 19 Kevin Terraciano, ethnohistorian and translator of Mixtec pre-Columbian texts,
reports that native priests would go to the top of a mountain with an image of Dzahui,
the rain god, place it on the ground, and then bounce a rubber ball around it, burning
the ball and smearing resin over the icon before sacrificing the young child they had
broughtalongbytearingouthisheartandofferingittothedivinity. 20 Inothercasesrub-
bereffigiesofmanytypeswereburnedasofferings. 21 Caucho rubberwasusedforritual
offerings on paper or slathered on bodies, and rubber effigies formed part of the ritual
matrix of the “elastic economy.” This was in addition to its more mundane uses for wa-
terproofed implements and amusements such as clown shoes for court jesters. 22 Modern
MexicanandMesoamerican rubber-soledsandals,todaymadewithtirestrips,harkback
to a pre-Columbian huarache and were described in the diaries of Spanish explorers and
missionaries. Linguistic evidence also attests to their existence: the Aztecs used a com-
pound word that clearly blends the words for “rubber” and “sandals.” 23
Caucho rubber was far more widespread than is usually recognized, with significant
roles in Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec ritual and daily life. 24 One indication of the import-
anceofthislatexwasitsvalueinimperialtribute.AbbéFranciscoJavierClavijero,writ-
ing in Mexico 1762, recorded that twenty-two cities supplied a tribute of some 16,000
loads ( cargas ) of rubber each, for an estimated annual tax of some 15,700 tons of this
product, 25 a level of usage that was equaled in Amazonian exports only in 1891, when
about half the world's production came from the Amazon. 26 The archaeology of caucho
shows long-term management and domestication. Only inferential evidence exists for
Hevea domestication, but the surprising richness of Hevea forests in the upper Amazon,
site of some of the most complex and densely settled areas of Amazonian civilizations,
suggeststhattheymightbeferalforests:thatis,formerproductionareaseventuallyturn-
ing wild with high densities of economic species. Amazonian natives describe myriad
uses for Hevea : for ball toys, waterproof cloth, illumination, and shoes, as an animal at-
tractant, and as a beverage—the latex was drunk, just like caucho and the gum of an-
other widespread tree, Manilkara . 27 The sap of this last tree today figures in the innards
of golf balls, but it enjoyed a vigorous market as a cable covering in the early telegraph
days.
Deep History of Hevea
Richard Schultes, one of the most important collectors and taxonomists of Amazonian
latex plants, portrayed Hevea as a tree only recently domesticated through the offices
Search WWH ::




Custom Search