Page:Cacao by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/9



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Long before the discovery of the American continent, cacao was used and cultivated from Mexico to Ecuador. It is thus a distinctly American contribution to the world's food resources.

It is the product of some small trees indigenous to the shady forests of northern South America. It probably also grew native along the Gulf Coast as far north as southern Mexico. The original extent of distribution of a plant so useful as the Cacao tree is difficult to determine with exactness. Its use has no doubt spread from one native tribe to another over a large area suitable for its cultivation. Besides, in the region in question, there has apparently been a shifting of peoples or a change of territories occupied by them in prehistoric days. It is even possible that the cultivation of the cacao was carried northward into Mexico from the south. There, at any rate, it was used by the Aztecs, and before them by the Toltecs. The early Conquistadores made its acquaintance at the court of Montezuma and the revenues of this renowned monarch consisted in part of cacao beans. "Chocolatl" was served to the king in a golden goblet, and he took it with the aid of a tortoise-shell spoon. His fondness for it must have been prodigious for fifty pitchers are said to have been prepared daily for his personal consumption, and two thousand more for his court.