Yuca

“ Of these the principal is the yuca, with which they make the masato, their only comfort and drink. They seldom taste water, which, in consequence of the heat, and of the innumerable morasses, is of a very noxious quality. ”

“ A cane hut with a thatch to keep out the heavy rains is their shelter and their food is the yuca, sugar cane, Indian corn, bananas of many kinds, and fish. A patch of yuca once planted will need but the most trifling attention for years. The small spider monkey is their greatest delicacy and to procure it they will often abandon every other project and return at their own sweet and belated will.
Fig. 22—Trading with Machiganga Indians in a reed swamp at Santao Anato, Urubamba Valley, before Rosalina. ”

“ Edible herbs and roots, except the potato and yuca, are little cultivated; but coffee, plantains, and sugar-cane, of which a variety called the blue or azul is very luxuriant, are reared with some care, where nature indeed requires but little aid from the hand of man. The sugar-cane comes to maturity earlier than in other parts of Peru, and yields an annual crop at very little cost of production. ”

“ Humboldt speaks of this as an active volcano, "from which detonations are heard almost daily." We heard nothing. It is possible that he meant Guamani.
[115] The Chasuta Indians, Herndon says, eat musquitoes that they catch on their bodies with the idea of restoring the blood which the insect has abstracted.
[116] Sometimes called yuca dulce, or sweet yuca, to distinguish it from the yuca brava, or wild yuca, the mandioca of the Amazon, from which farina is made. The yuca is the beet-like root of a little tree about ten feet high. It is a good substitute for potatoes and bread. ”

“ But their neighbours having fought with these [72] natives until they were driven from thence, all that yuca harvest remained to enable the Spaniards to restore their well-being with it. At the end of eight days Gonzalo Pizarro ordered that all should depart and travel up stream, to see if God, our Lord, would be pleased to guide the expedition to some good land, or back to that from which they had come. At that plantation two Spaniards died through eating too many yucas. Others swelled in such a way that they could not walk on their feet. ”

“ In the Valleys the Spaniards found several precious Jems, as Saphires, Jasper, Emeralds, and great pieces of Amber, and in some Huts, Baskets, and Chests full of dry’d Locusts, and Crabs.
Here also grows the Root Yuca, as also on several other West-Indian Coasts, of which they make their best Bread, and is call’d in Hispaniola and Angola, Yuca; by the Brasilians, Mandiba and Mandihoka; by the Mexicans, Quauhcamotli: it grows with a thick or midling Body, according to the fruitfulness or barrenness of the Soil ”

“ The country is rough; the hills completely enveloped in forest trees. The descent is still great. Arriving at the house of a squatter, we put up for the night. Cascarilleros bring their bark here to deposit it. The place is called Cueba. Three families live in bamboo houses; the men and women are engaged in clearing little patches of ground, where they plant sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, peppers, plantains, oranges, potatoes, watermelons, cotton, and yuca. Probably there may be 40 acres in all cleared. Yuca serves for bread where they have no flour ”

“ Potatoes are grown everywhere in the sierras, and with quinua are the only crops that can be raised for human food above 13,000 ft. Yuca (Manihot utilissima) , known as cassava in the West Indies and mandioca in Brazil, is also widely cultivated for food and for the manufacture of starch. There are good pastures in the sierras, and cattle have been successfully reared in some,of the departments since the early years of Spanish occupation, chiefly in Ancachs, Cajamarca, Junin, Ayacucho, Puno, and some parts of Cuzco. ”

“ The Indians are very curious in planting and manuring of this yuca. It is a little shrubb, and carryeth branches like hazell wands; being growne as bigge as a mans finger, they breake them off in the middest, and so pricke them into the ground; it needeth no other art or husbandry, for out of each branch grow two, three, or foure rootes, some bigger, some lesser: but first they burne and manure the ground, the which labour, and whatsoever els is requisite, the men doe not so much as helpe with a finger, but all With the labour of the women. ”

“ The trees had been cut down and burned, and yucas neatly planted in hills stretched to the very edge of the clearing. Through the centre ran lanes of plantain and banana plants, bordered by rows of pineapples, sugar-cane, and cashews. The ground was carefully cultivated, and there were no weeds; the stalks of uprooted plants had been piled around the edge of the field forming a thick fence. The reason for maintaining such large plantations is that the women make a good deal of mandioca to sell to the traders for cloth, matches, perfume, and trinkets. The men clear the ground ”

“ The Indians of Mocoa are also Incas, the same as those of Santiago. They speak the same tongue, have the same customs, houses, arms, and utensils, differing only in the dress, which, on account of the heat, consists only of a long, black or white cotton shirt, almost concealing a pair of knee-pants of the same colour and material, and in their food, which is more diversified and comprises not only maize, &c., but also yuca, plantains, and many forest products. Like the Incas of Santiago, they also profess Christianity and have a limited knowledge of Spanish. ”

“ You must live in order to serve God by fulfilling his will. Good-by for a while, eh?”
When Lucía went down into the garden, to her eyes, fatigued with weeping, it seemed less sickly-looking and arid than usual. The yucas raised their majestic heads wearing perennial crowns; the plants exhaled a faint rural odor, more grateful, at any rate, than the odor of the wax. ”

“ The latter, owing, as we have said, her fashions and her veneer of civilisation to Paris and New York, is assisted by her size in still being much herself. Not so Merida. No self-respecting Yucatecan wants to be himself. All of them are pathetically striving all the time after a culture which they do not understand, and which fits them as ill as his dress suit fits the hired butler at a suburban dance. ”

“ The evenings at Merida are the gayest times, for then all folks, rich and poor, come out to spend the cool hours in the plaza. There is very little twilight ever in the tropics, and as soon as the sun is down and it is dusk enough, the wealthy Yucatecans have a queer habit of sitting in rocking-chairs outside their houses. A whole group of ladies will thus take the air in front of the huge doorways of the biggest houses, surrounded by two or three cavaliers. ”

“ In the fertile vale of Chinchao, famous for its coca plantations, a few proprietors of Huanuco cultivate frijoles, or beans, for the use [60] of the coca-gatherers: rice is also grown by the humid banks of the great rivers, and maize is everywhere sown as a necessary of life.
In the Montaña, chicha is made from maize, as in other parts of Peru; but the natives here make a drink called masata, not known in more civilized parts of the country, produced by chewing the yuca or maize, &c. ”

“ Though probably as immoral as any race in the world, the Yucatecans are singularly modest, and, though he saw us minus everything but a smile revelling in the cool limestone water and he would sit mournfully by trying to pick the garrapatas out of his legs and thighs, nothing would induce him to take advantage of our rubber bath, presumably because he feared we might look while he was in the "altogether." ”

“ In view of all the fire thus came at noon upon the altars, after which the priest prophesied what should come to pass, especially by way of pestilence, famine, and death. "The Yucatec have an excessive fear of death," says Landa, "as may be seen in all their rites with which they honour their gods, which have no other end than to obtain health and life and their daily bread" ”

“ The gods of the Yucatecs required far fewer human lives at the hands of their worshipers than those of the Nahuas. The pages of Yucatec history are not marred by the constant blood-blots that obscure the Nahua record. An event which in Mexico would be the death-signal to a hecatomb of human victims, would in Yucatan be celebrated by the death of a spotted dog. The office of sacrificer which in Mexico was one of the highest honors to which a priest could attain, was in Yucatan regarded as unclean and degrading. ”

“ Yucatan is low, marshy, damp, hot. The Yaquis were bred on the high, dry Sonoran plateau, where the air is like a knife. They dropped dead in the henequen fields, and their places were taken by more. You see, the Mexicans won't kill outright in their war of extermination of the Yaquis. They get use out of them. It's a horrible thing.... Well, this Yaqui you brought in escaped from his captors, got aboard ship, and eventually reached New Orleans. Somehow he traveled way out here. I gave him a bag of food, and he went off with a Papago Indian. ”

“ The young sons of fourteen and upwards are not restrained from, indeed they are often actually encouraged by fathers and even mothers in, indulging their boyish passions at the expense of the little Indian slave-girls. It is no answer to say, as some Yucatecans do, that the girls are in very many cases more than willing victims of their boy-lovers. Yucatecan lads are notably handsome, and even [Pg 333] maids of the cold North would find it hard to withstand their wooing. It remains the fact that these youthful Don Juans in many cases do not woo at all. ”

“ For the first two leagues we followed the regular road to Lima and the north, branching off when we reached the ford over the Pongora River, then passing through several small plantations and near two vineyards, we crossed the river Yucaes on a new suspension bridge and climbed the face of a steep cliff by a zigzag trail. We had good animals and kept them going at a comfortable trot so that we arrived at the little village of Quinua in three and a half hours after leaving Ayacucho. ”

“ Yma Sumac (How Beautiful) . Daughter of Curi-Coyllur; in the drama Apu-Ollanta, 252-253
Yoalli Ehecatl (The Night Wind) . A manifestation of Tezcatlipoca, 66
Yohualticitl. A name of Metztli, which see
Yolcuat. Form of Quetzalcoatl, 84
Yopi. Indian tribe; Xipe adopted from, 92
Yucatan. Settlement of the Maya in, 151-152; architectural remains in, 178
Yucay. Inca ruins at, 269
Yum Kaax (Lord of the Harvest Fields) . Maya deity; God E probably identical with, 174
Yunca. Name given to the tropical and lowland districts of Peru, 255
Yupanqui Pachacutic. ”

“ Several species of tree yuccas in the same deserts, laden in early spring with superb while lilies, form forests hardly less wonderful, though here they grow singly or in small lonely groves. The low, almost stemless Yucca baccata, with beautiful lily-flowers and sweet banana-like fruit, prized by the Indians, is common along the cañon rim, growing on lean, rocky soil beneath mountain-mahogany, nut-pines, and junipers, beside dense flowery mats of Spiraea caespitosa and the beautiful pinnate-leaved Spiraea millefolium. ”

“ We stopped at a collection of three or four huts called Oge, where there was a trapiche to grind sugar-cane; but the people only made bad rum of it. We tried to purchase yuccas and plantains; but though they had them, they did not care to sell. They only plant enough for their own necessities. Great quantities of yuccas are used, to make their masato. Below this we passed a rancho on the right-hand side, where there was a fine field of maize. This is the first settlement we have seen on that bank; fear of the savages, (or Infidels,) as they are called, who dwell on that side, preventing it. ”

“ During the months of May and June when the plant is in full bloom it is nothing strange, when venturing into the desert mountains, to find oneself in a veritable forest of countless thousands of yuccas. With its erect stalk, attaining a height of from four to twelve feet, heavily and massively crowned with creamy white blossoms, the yucca closely resembles 59 a gigantic hyacinth of the California desert and mountains, and its delicious fragrance outrivals many of the costliest perfumes. ”

“ Freedom, under such circumstances, is little better than slavery; but it is better, for this reason,—that it only requires some improvement in the intelligence and habits of the laborers to convert it into a system of free labor worthy of the name.
The yucca (cassava-root) is a plant of fifteen or [Pg 372] twenty feet in height. It is difficult to distinguish this plant from the mandioc, which is called "wild yucca;" and this, "sweet yucca." This may be eaten raw; but the other is poisonous until subjected to heat in cooking, and then is perfectly wholesome. ”

“ Here and there, a tree yucca grew by the way, its fascicles of rigid leaves reminding one of the plumed heads of Indian warriors. Some I saw with edible fruits growing in clusters, like bunches of bananas. Several species are there of these fruit-bearing yuccas in the region of the Rio Grande, as yet unknown to the scientific botanist. I observed also the palmilla, or soap-plant, another yucca whose roots yield an excellent substitute for soap; and various forms of cactus—never out of sight on Mexican soil—grew thickly around, a characteristic feature of the landscape. ”

“ The women have small aprons of dangling yucca fiber strings while the men may wear loin-cloths of buckskin or cotton cloth. Children wear nothing at all. Yucca fiber sandals usually are worn by both men and women when they leave the cave but they are not essential about the city itself. The people of Cliff Palace are not clothes conscious and with their rich brown skins they need no protection from the sun. Even the men, who spend long hours in the sunny fields, need no covering.
The farmers are all smiles for their crops are growing prodigiously. Corn, beans and squash are growing well. ”