In the ancient world, cocoa only existed in its purest form and was known only for its medicinal value. For many centuries this pure form of cocoa was revered by all and trusted for its beneficial use in cases like fever, heart pain, emaciation, fatigue, kidney and bowel complaints. There is historical evidence that points us to the ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations who recorded their use of cocoa for medicinal purposes for over 2000 years. More recently man has tarnished cocoa's healthy reputation by adding emulsifying fats, sugars, milk, flavorings and preservatives, and introduced processed cocoa to the world. But this was not true of cocoa in the ancient world. Cocoa's Ancient Travelogue The growing of cocoa plants dates back to 1500 BC when it is believed the Olmec Indians grew the cocoa beans as a domestic crop. At around 250 BC to 900 CE the drinking of an unsweetened cocoa drink was prevalent, but only amongst the elite of Mayan society. It was a sophisticated drink even in those days! When the Mayans migrated to the northern parts of South America, they took their cocoa beans with them. This drink was a big hit with the upper class Aztec Indians and they decided to make it their own, imposing a tax on the beans. The Aztecs were the first to call it "xocalatl", which means warm or bitter liquid. …show more content…
Mayan nobles gifted Prince Philip of Spain with jars of beaten cocoa, pre-mixed and ready-to-drink. But neither Spain, nor Portugal shared this gift with the rest of Europe till a century later. In the 16th century, the Spanish began to add sugar cane juice and vanilla flavoring to produce a sweetened cocoa drink, which was more palatable to the taste
In the article "Sacred Sustenance: Maize, Storytelling, and a Mayan Sense of Place," the author, Leah Alexandra Huff, is arguing that Ethnographers should pay more attention to stories because they allow for a deeper understanding of cultures. To support her argument, she uses the example of the significance of maize in the Mayan civilization as well as their sense of place. Huff first describes the importance of place in building and maintaining a community and developing it identity. She explains that place was important for indigenous communities such as the Mayans because land was part of their cultural and spiritual systems. Huff then goes on to detail the importance of storytelling. She argues that storytelling helps create identity,
During Valentine’s week alone, millions of pounds of chocolate candies alone are sold (“Who consumes the most chocolate,” 2012, para 8). This naturally creates a demand for product, which in turns causes a need for ingredients. The main component in chocolate, of course, is cocoa. Since Côte d’Ivoire provides 40 percent of the world’s supply of this crucial ingredient (Losch, 2002, p. 206), it merits investigation i...
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican people that lived in the area of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th and 16th century. It is said that Aztecs came from a place called Aztlan. Aztlan was the Aztec's homeland, nobody knows exactly where it was, but it is believed that Aztlan lies somewhere to the north of Mexico. Some experts claim that Aztlan is a mythical place. According to Aztec legends Huitzilopochtli, their god of war and of the sun, told them to leave Aztlan and to wander until they saw an eagle on a cactus budding out of a rock and eating a snake. The Aztecs traveled many years to find the legend that Huitzilopochtli had told. They left Aztlan in the 12th century. They built their settlements in the Valley of Mexico by Lake Texcoco. There were other Indian tribes living in the area when the Aztecs arrived. The Aztecs called their settlement Tenochtitlan. By the time they settled after two centuries of voyage they called themselves by a different name, the Mexica, but the term Aztec has been used as a ...
Upon arrival in the Americas, Europeans set out to make wheat the standard grain in the lands they had discovered; the establishment of wheat was both functional, as it was a staple of the European diet, as well as an attempt to institutionalize European control. While wheat did gain some ground in the Americas, especially among the upper classes, it failed to surmount maize as the “the foundation of indigenous livelihood.” The persistence of maize as a staple of the indigenous way of life is not shocking, as J. Eric Thompson writes: “Maize was a great deal more than the economic basis of Maya civilization: it was the focal point of worship, and to it every Maya who worked the soil built a shrine in his own heart.” The Americas were not
While reading the Trade in the Aztec Civilization, I learned a great deal of new and old business ethics. I saw the differences between today’s business and before business and how we have evolved from it. One of the first things I noticed was the different social classes. Just like in today’s society there were the rich, the middle class, and the poor. The pipiltin’s and mayeques considered themselves the common people. They were the first ones to engage in guilds. On the other hand we had the pochteca who thought of themselves as the more great importance of the social classes. They had what you would call a world of their own in my opinion. They had there own religion, their own economic code, and legal system. Each group came from a different part of the Mexican land, anywhere from El Salvador, to Nicaragua to the Gulf of Mexico. Each group had there own individuality, but came together to share their knowledge in the buying, selling and trading of goods.
University of North Carolina, 2010. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. <http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/1866> Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. The True History of Chocolate.
Mayan, Inca, and Aztec Civilizations. The Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations each originated in Latin America. The Mayans lived in southern and central Mexico, other Mayans lived in Central America in the present day countries of Belize, Guatemala, and ancient Honduras. The Incas lived along the long coastal strip, and in the high peaks and deep fertile valleys of the Andes Mountains, and along the edges of the tropical forest to the east; this would be the country of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina in present days.
Art in the Aztec empire came from a long line of history. The history was made from many different tribes. It is known that “most of the historical and archaeological testimonies of ancient Mexico come from the Aztec world and, in particular, its capital city, Mexico City- Tenochtitlan” (Brumfiel & Feinman, 2008, 153). The techniques used in the Aztec art were influenced by years of artistry. Ancient Aztec art was usually traded from countries nearby. Aztecs took pride in creating very beautiful pottery. The Aztecs, were thought to have originated as a nomadic tribe in Northern Mexico. The Aztecs considered their “own household wares to be less fine than Mixteca-Puebla pottery” (Pasztory, 1998, p. 292). There is a lot to be known about the ancient Aztec Pottery.
The most important idea in Allen J. Christenson's Popol Vuh is maize or often known as corn but to the Maya culture, corn has a bigger significance than just food. Corn has played a important role in empires, civilizations and people for thousands of years. The Maya have a lot of admiration to corn as a cornerstone of their culture and spirituality. Maize was so highly admired that the Mayans had a Maize God. Corn was a gift from the Gods and cultivating it and planting it was a sacred duty it was a really important process in which corn was to be planted and harvested. Temples were built for Maize Gods and corn was used to nourish workers and kings. To the Mayans, the Gods made humankind out of maize. The Maya also considered this crop to be the vegetation of life in order to eat and grow. This symbolized the fragile nature of corn, a crop that depends entirely on human cultivation for its reproduction with such deep meaning and that has deep culture and meaning.
Should historians emphasize agriculture or human sacrifice? Located in present day Mexico City, agriculture was a main reason why Tenochtitlan and the Aztec empire expanded. In 1350 the Aztecs expanded their civilization on the small island of Tenochtitlan with a small population of 300,000 people. Their population increased dramatically so they had to acquire new ways for farming and agriculture. They soon had a whopping 20,000 acres of farmland and a population of more than 10 million people. After agriculture had developed, the Aztecs began making sacrifices to the gods to prevent crops from failing. Historians should emphasize large scale, clever construction, and why agriculture is crucial for daily life. Agriculture was the main cause
In Mayan culture, “ chia” means “strength”. Chia seeds are reported to date back to 3500 B.C. when they served as an essential nutritional component to the Aztecs. The Aztecs held the belief that the seeds were able to deliver supernatural abilities to those that consumed. This concept may be partially true if one were to consider the amount of energy offered by the Chia seeds as “supernatural abilities”. Later on, between 1500 and 900 B.C., the Teotihuacan and Toltec people of Mexico began growing the seed in their homelands. Currently, the seeds are grown mostly in South America from the plant Salvia Hispanica. Chia Seeds boast a number of health benefits. In two tablespoons (one ounce), 4 grams of protein and 9 grams of fat (5 of which
Chocolate or cacao was first discovered by the Europeans as a New World plant, as the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. In Latin, Theobroma literally means: “food of the Gods” (Bugbee, Cacao and Chocolate: A Short History of Their Production and Use). Originally found and cultivated in Mexico, Central America and Northern South America, its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning “bitter water” (Grivetti; Howard-Yana, Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage). It was also a beverage in Mayan tradition that served a function as a ceremonial item. The cacao plant is g...
Before looking into the chemical and psychological effects of chocolate, it is important to go back in time and see where chocolate originated. Even from the very beginning chocolate was viewed as a powerful food. The idea of chocolate first began in 1500 BC when the Pre-Olmecs and Mokaya peoples found that the beans that grew on the cacao trees could be used as food (Semenak, "Chocolate in History"). Moving forward to 600, the Mayan and Aztec civilizations used the chocolate beans in a more meaningful way. The Mayans created a drink from the beans and drank it during weddings and other important ceremonies. Only those of the highest class could indulge in what the Mayans referred to as the “God Food” ("Food: The History of Chocolate"). Similarly, the Aztecs created a drink out of the cacao beans, and according to Susan Semenak’s 2012 newspaper article, “Chocolate in History,” the Aztecs used it as a “love potion.” Pretty soon, the beans became so c...
Chocolate was first used more than 3,000 years ago by the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec. They used cocoa beans as currency, and also created a beverage out of it- usually used for special occasions -religious ceremonies and marriage celebrations. (Ancient Mayans believed cocoa beans were a food from the gods, and that it was very sacred. Cocoa was so important that images of cocoa pods were painted on the walls of stone temples, and there have been Mayan artifacts found that show the gods and kings with chocolate. The demand for the cocoa bean and the beverage that it produced brought about a huge network of trade routes throughout the region.
Central Idea: Explain how cocoa beans are processed to produce the chocolate we all know and love