Food of the Gods

Goal: After this lesson you can trace cacao's sacred role across the Mesoamerican civilizations that grew, worshipped, and spent it. Subject: Social Studies | Run time: about 8 minutes

Quick recall

Last time we covered the climate threat to cacao. Two quick questions. One: if average temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius, how much of today's suitable cacao land could become unsuitable? Up to 89 percent of it (Läderach et al., 2013). Two: why can't cacao escape a warming climate by moving uphill the way coffee can? Because cacao already grows at low elevation and needs lowland forest conditions, so there is no cooler high ground to climb to (Läderach et al., 2013).

Why this matters

We've talked about cacao as a plant. Now meet cacao as a god. For thousands of years before anyone added sugar, people in the Americas treated this bitter forest seed as sacred. They wrote it into their creation story. They drank it in their temples. And they used it as money. The story starts long before the Maya or the Aztecs, with a people called the Olmec.

The idea

The Olmec began harvesting wild cacao around 3500 BCE, and the oldest confirmed chemical evidence of people drinking cacao dates to around 1900 BCE (Coe & Coe, 2013). That is older than most of the empires you learned in school. Cacao was here first. The Maya took it further and made it holy. They planted cacao in sacred groves inside their temple complexes, and around 300 CE, at the city of Copan, they carved the first written references to cacao into hieroglyphs (Coe & Coe, 2013). This is one of the earliest moments a crop gets written into the literature of a civilization. How deep did it go? All the way to the beginning of the world. In the Popol Vuh, the sacred creation book of the Maya, the gods try and fail to make humanity out of mud and then out of wood. Humanity finally succeeds when the gods make people from corn and cacao (Christenson, 2007). Cacao is not a snack in this story. It is one of the two ingredients of being human. Then come the Aztecs, who did something no one expects. They turned cacao into cash. Beans were money (Coe & Coe, 2013). One cacao bean bought a tomato. About 100 beans bought a turkey. About 8,000 beans bought a canoe. And the empire collected an annual tribute to its capital, Tenochtitlan, of about 24 million beans (Coe & Coe, 2013). Think about that. The money was edible, and it grew on a tree. Because cacao was both sacred and valuable, who got to drink it tracked exactly with power. Commoners tasted it only at festivals. The emperor drank it without limit. Moctezuma II reportedly drank 50 or more cups a day (Coe & Coe, 2013). The same cup that was rationed to most people by the calendar was poured for the emperor by the bucket.

Picture it

This lesson shows you an interactive map of cacao's homeland and its ports. Pull it up and find the warm lowland forests near the equator, the Olmec and Maya country, then trace the trade routes inland to the Aztec capital. Picture loads of beans, 980 of them in the annual tribute, moving along those routes toward Tenochtitlan. The map is showing you a currency in motion, beans flowing from sacred forest groves to an emperor drinking his fiftieth cup.

Remember this

The fact to carry out: for thousands of years cacao was sacred and valuable at the same time. The Olmec used it first around 1900 BCE, the Maya made it holy and wrote it into the Popol Vuh creation story, and the Aztecs made it money and rationed it by social class (Coe & Coe, 2013; Christenson, 2007). Hold onto that idea of cacao as sacred money, because next time outsiders arrive and turn it into something else entirely.

Quick check

Quick check. In the Maya Popol Vuh, what are humans finally made from? Corn and cacao, after earlier attempts with mud and wood failed (Christenson, 2007).

Key Takeaways

• The Olmec harvested wild cacao from around 3500 BCE, with the oldest confirmed evidence of cacao drinking around 1900 BCE (Coe & Coe, 2013).
• The Maya planted sacred cacao groves and carved the first written cacao references in hieroglyphs at Copan around 300 CE (Coe & Coe, 2013).
• In the Maya Popol Vuh, humanity is finally created from corn and cacao (Christenson, 2007).
• The Aztecs used cacao beans as money (1 bean for a tomato, about 100 for a turkey, about 8,000 for a canoe) and collected about 24 million beans a year as tribute to Tenochtitlan (Coe & Coe, 2013).
• Access tracked power: commoners drank cacao only at festivals, while Moctezuma II reportedly drank 50 or more cups a day (Coe & Coe, 2013).

Sources

• Christenson, A. J. (2007). Popol Vuh: The sacred book of the Maya. University of Oklahoma Press.
• Coe, S. D., & Coe, M. D. (2013). The true history of chocolate (3rd ed.). Thames and Hudson.