NR-015Ingredient Atlas entry · Herb

Guarana

Paullinia cupana, a climbing plant from the Amazon

A Jesuit who would vouch for only one of its powers, a bishop with a headache, a judge who heard it caused impotence and two Paris pharmacists who found caffeine in it. The Sateré-Mawé say it grew from a murdered boy's eye. The tribe it is supposedly named after lived more than 2,000 kilometres away.

  • Part used: seed
  • Taken as seed powder or extract
  • Often a single dose
Version 1.3
A cluster of ripe guarana fruit split open to show the seeds
A cluster of ripe guarana fruit split open to show the seeds. Photo by Geoff Gallice, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mosquitoes on the Amazon

The Amazon, 1669. Nobody in the canoe could sleep.1

Father João Filipe Bettendorff, a Jesuit from Luxembourg, ran his order's mission, and he had come to visit the Tupinambaranas on their point of high ground above the river.1, 2 After a long day of baptisms and weddings, he had the big canoe taken out to the middle of the calm river. At nightfall the priests climbed in, hoping the mosquitoes would not follow. They followed. Not a priest, not even an Indian, could close an eye.1

So he told Tomás, an Indian trumpeter in the party, to play towards a hill with an echo, to get them through the night. In the dark the village looked like a blazing fire, and by dawn it was bigger still, loud with crying children. In the morning they learned why from Manuel Coelho, a settler travelling with them on business. The villagers had lit fires under their hammocks against the mosquitoes, and the crying came from children tormented by the bites.1

At Mass the villagers asked Bettendorff to excommunicate the mosquitoes. He told them it would not work. The mosquitoes were in their own land and cared nothing for excommunication, so the people should move instead. They did, a day's journey inland to a lake.1, 3

Bettendorff turned back there, because in those years only missionaries marching with soldiers went further.1 Upriver lived the Andirazes. Twenty-nine years later, writing his chronicle of the mission in 1698, he set down their treasure.3

They have in their forests, he wrote, a little fruit they call guaraná. They dry it, pound it and shape it into balls, "which they value as the whites value their gold". Grated with a little stone into a gourd of water, it gives such strength that hunters go from one day to the next without hunger. It also makes you pass water, and takes away fevers, headaches and cramps.3

Then the old Jesuit gave his own verdict. "Its power to make you pass water I can vouch for. Of the rest I know nothing for certain, except what I commonly hear."3

The boy's two eyes

Guaraná is a climbing vine, first tamed in the forests between the lower Tapajós and the lower Madeira, south of the Amazon. When the fruit ripens, its red skin splits and white flesh opens around a black seed. Each one looks like a human eye.4

Bettendorff's Andirazes were ancestors of the people now called the Sateré-Mawé, who still live between those rivers and still grow it.4, 5 They call it waraná. One of their clans is named after it, and in their stories the guaraná was their first chief. To the Portuguese they were the Maués or the Magués.5

In 1978 Colombo, son of the old chief Manoelzinho of Nova Esperança on the Marau river, told how it began. A boy had been killed by his uncles. His mother was Uniawasap, mistress of Nusoken, the paradise, and she tended his body and called to him. "Hey, my son, look here!" When he looked, she took out his left eye, and that became guaranarana, the false guaraná. She called again, took his right eye and planted it. From it grew the true guaraná.5

"You were dead, my son," she said, "but now you are in the guaraná." In Colombo's telling the women sit grating it, everyone drinks from the big gourd, and then they all go to work. "For everything they will need you," the mother told her son, "to hunt, to work, to heal, to drink again."5

That drink is çapó, the stick grated into water. It is an everyday drink, a ritual one and a sacred one, drunk in great quantities, and a chief offers it to every guest.5

The bishop's headache

The bishop of Grão-Pará was a Benedictine monk called Dom João de São José. At one in the morning on 10 November 1762 he left Belém to tour the backlands of his diocese. On 5 December he put in at Santarém, at the mouth of the Tapajós, and the fort fired a salute.6

One afternoon there, worn down by a pressing headache and the great heat, he took the advice of old hands and drank guaraná. It "certainly relieved us a great deal," he wrote.6

The bishop also noted that in larger amounts it took away sleep and stood in for it, and killed hunger, sustaining like chocolate, only better. It should be a medicine, not a treat, as people now took it, because too much brought on dizziness.6 For the Magué nation it was the most precious provision before a battle, and they used its seeds as money. People credited it with so much that the only thing nobody prescribed it for was sudden death, "a sign that it has many devotees".6

The bishop was a hard judge of the Indians around him. In the same pages he complains that Santarém's Indian women went into the river naked in front of his windows. Back in Belém, stopping it had meant arresting sixty or seventy of them.6 He called the Magués traitors. They had killed João Portes, a man from São Paulo, and Bernardino Monteiro, the director of Pinhel, after promising to come down with them to be taught the faith. Many Magués had been brought down to Pinhel, and some to Santarém. That year five families fled Santarém for the forest, and forty people fled Pinhel.6

A judge on the Madeira

Twelve years later a crown judge came through. Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio was chief magistrate of the captaincy of Rio Negro, and he travelled in a canoe with eight rowers a side.7 On 25 September 1774, rowing up the Madeira, he noted the channel just upstream where the Abacaxis, Canumá and Maués rivers flow out. The fiercest nations of wild Indians lived there, he wrote.7

The Maués were famous for making the celebrated drink guaraná, "very cooling", and already used in Europe. They roasted the fruit, pounded it into loaves and dried the loaves in smoke. Drinkers grated a loaf with the bony tongue of the pirarucu, one of the Amazon's biggest fish, and stirred the powder into water.4, 7

It was an approved remedy for mild diarrhoea, headaches and urinary troubles. Heavy use upset some stomachs and caused sleeplessness "and, they say, impotence".7 Pará drank it anyway. Many people took it at any hour, without sugar like the Indians, though it was quite bitter.7

Sampaio called the Maués brave, but trade with them was now forbidden. In 1769 Governor Fernando da Costa de Ataíde Teive had banned it, citing their bad faith and the killing of some of the men who ran it.7

A parcel from Rio

In 1817 a parcel from Rio de Janeiro reached the Paris pharmacist Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt. A French officer who had followed his ambassador to the court of Brazil had sent him two local remedies.8

The second was a half-sphere, dark red, marbled inside like a gum resin and smelling faintly rank. Its label read "Piece of guarana. Indian remedy, highly esteemed for dysenteries, retention of urine, etc."8 Cadet tested it and still could not say what plant it came from. Naturalists gave the name to a kind of curlew and to a small songbird, he wrote, "but no plant has yet been called guarana by the botanists".8

Botany caught up in two steps. In 1821 Carl Sigismund Kunth was working through the plants Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland had brought back. He named a climbing Paullinia from the Orinoco cupana, after the local people's word.9 In 1826 the Bavarian botanist Carl von Martius identified the Amazon plant. He named it Paullinia sorbilis, the drinkable paullinia, which botanists now count a variety of Kunth's cupana.5, 10

Martius's younger brother Theodor, an apothecary in Erlangen, analysed the paste and drew out crystals. He called them guaranine.10, 11, 12

Nothing other than caffeine

In 1840 two Paris pharmacists, Berthemot and Dechastelus, got hold of a good quantity of guaraná. They set out to make guaranine again, to learn what it really was.12 They steeped the powder, changing the water every few hours so that it would not turn mouldy and ferment, and coaxed crystals from the extracts.12

The crystals had the same look, the same shape, the same taste, the same solubility and the same reactions as caffeine. Burned and weighed in the laboratory of the chemist Pelouze, they had the same make-up too. Martius's guaranine, they concluded, "is nothing other than caffeine".12

Caffeine had been found in coffee, then in tea, and now in a third plant family. "We take nothing from the merit of Martius's work," they wrote, "but we simplify science by uniting two identical substances."12

The tribe that wasn't there

The same issue of the journal carried a paper on guaraná by the Paris pharmacist and naturalist Julien-Joseph Virey. Its name, he declared, belonged not to the plant but to the people who made it, the Guaraní tribes between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers. He blamed a diet of manioc, yams and maize for leaving them weak, pale and listless, easy for the Jesuits to subdue, and so in need of a tonic.10

On the next page Virey wrote that the people who made most of it were the Maués, near Topinambarana on the Amazon.10 The Guaraní stayed in the story anyway. They went into the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, "so called from the Guaranis", into American pharmacy books, and onto health sites today.13, 14, 15

Virey's own geography sinks the claim. He put the Guaraní between 27 and 30 degrees south, more than 2,000 kilometres south of the Maués.10 And 142 years before him, Bettendorff had written that the Andirazes called their fruit guaraná.3 The Sateré-Mawé say waraná is the plant's first name, and guaraná the Portuguese word made from it.16

Two smaller slips travel with the big one. Some histories, including one from Brazil's farm research agency, date Bettendorff's account to 1669, the year of the mosquitoes. He wrote it in 1698.3, 17 And in 2003 a food-industry magazine found manufacturers still saying guaranine was like caffeine but not the same, 163 years after Berthemot and Dechastelus.18

Washing the bread

Over the centuries slavers, militias and missionaries preyed on the Sateré-Mawé, and traders cheated them, swapping overvalued goods for their guaraná.19 In 1981 and 1982 the French state oil company Elf-Aquitaine cut 344 kilometres of trails and 82 clearings through their forest. Four Indigenous people died of poisoning. The Sateré-Mawé took Elf and the Brazilian oil company Petrobras to court, with their lawyer, Dalmo Dallari, and won. In 1986 Brazil confirmed their land, the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Land, at 788,528 hectares.5

On 20 October 2020 Brazil's industrial property office granted their waraná a protected designation of origin, for the native guaraná and for the smoked sticks they call bread.20

Their rules for making it read like a rite. The master baker shapes the paste into a stick by hand, leaving no hollow inside. Then his wife washes the bread in a gourd for ten minutes, the way a newborn is washed, and everyone present drinks the water. It is always done in public, so that everyone can keep a check on the baker. The bread then sits in the smoke of muruci and araçá wood for three months, raised higher each month.16

A good stick, the rules add, is black and shiny, rings when struck and breaks with a single blow.20 In the twentieth century Brazil also turned guaraná into a soda and a national icon.19 What modern trials found is in the Research tab.

In 1698 Bettendorff wrote that the Andirazes grated their guaraná with a little stone into a gourd of water. Their descendants' rules taste the bread the same way, grated on a stone. It has to be basalt.3, 20

See what modern trials found

Myths and facts

In the record, or legend?

Every story you will read about this plant, checked against the oldest source we could find.

  • Bettendorff described guaraná in 1669

    Wrong date

    He visited the Tupinambaranas in 1669 and went no further upriver. He wrote down the Andirazes' guaraná in 1698. Embrapa's 2002 history and the Instituto Socioambiental's page both give 16691, 3, 5, 17

  • The Andirazes valued guaraná like gold

    In the record

    Bettendorff's own words, 1698, "as the whites value their gold"3

  • Guaraná is named after the Guaraní tribe

    Legend

    The oldest version found is Virey's, 1840. In the same paper he put the Guaraní more than 2,000 km away and said the Maués made most of it. Bettendorff wrote in 1698 that the Andirazes called it guaraná3, 10, 13, 14, 15

  • The word guaraná comes from the Sateré-Mawé waraná

    Likely

    The Sateré-Mawé's own production rules say so, and their ancestors used the name in 1698. We found no linguist's study of the word3, 16

  • Guaranine is a different stimulant from caffeine

    Legend

    Berthemot and Dechastelus showed in 1840 that Martius's guaranine is caffeine. Some manufacturers still claimed otherwise in 200312, 18

  • The Sateré-Mawé were the first to domesticate guaraná

    Likely

    Brazil's Instituto Socioambiental and the historian Seth Garfield credit them. Smith and Atroch place the domestication in their country but say it is unclear which group did it4, 5, 19

  • The eye legend is a Guaraní story

    Legend

    It is the Sateré-Mawé's own. In a telling published in 1870, Jurupary, as a snake, kills the boy and Tupã orders his eyes planted. In Colombo's 1978 telling his uncles kill him and his mother plants his right eye4, 5, 15, 19

In the record means a source from the time, or a scholar quoting one, says it. Likely means a named expert's reasoned identification. Told, not shown means one interested party says it and nothing checks it. Partly means a real event sits under a bigger story. Legend means the earliest source is far too late or missing. Wrong date means the event is real but the popular date doesn't match the record.

Notes

Every fact in the story points to one of these. Where a translation is ours, the note says so.

Show all 20 notes Hide the notes
  1. João Filipe Bettendorff, Crônica da missão dos padres da Companhia de Jesus no Estado do Maranhão (written from 1693 until 25 May 1698, the date of its last words, according to the chronology printed at the end of the edition; he died on 5 August 1698 with it unfinished, note 2), Edições do Senado Federal vol. 115 (Brasília, 2010), Livro V ("Do que se obrou do ano 1667 até o ano 1684"), cap. V, pp. 291-294, https://archive.org/details/cronica-da-missao-dos-padres-da-companhia-de-jesus-no-estado-do-maranhao . Translation ours. The chapter heading says the superior of the mission visits all the villages "levando em sua companhia o padre Pero Luís e o irmão Domingos da Costa"; the same visit is dated 1669 on p. 39 (note 3). p. 293: "Dos Tapajós subimos seis dias para cima, para os Tupinambaranas, que por aquele tempo moravam em uma ponta sobre o rio das Amazonas; aí estivemos doutrinando, batizando, casando" (teaching, baptising, marrying); "Estando cansados com os muitos trabalhos do dia, mandei os remeiros que levassem a canoa grande em que íamos pelo meio do rio, que por aquele tempo estava quieto, e nós à boca da noite nos fomos por dentro dela, cuidando que por meio desta prevenção não nos perseguisse tanto a praga de mosquitos, que não deixavam descansar a ninguém; porém, foram nos seguindo, tanto que não houve padre nem ainda índio que pudesse fechar olho para dormir" (tired from the day's many labours, I had the rowers take the big canoe we travelled in out to the middle of the river, which was calm then, and at nightfall we went inside it, thinking the plague of mosquitoes would not pursue us so much; but they followed, so that there was no priest nor even Indian who could close an eye to sleep); "levava em nossa companhia um índio, par nome Tomás, trombeteiro, mandei-lhe tocasse trombeta, virada para banda de um outeiro, para com a agradável correspondência do eco que aí havia, passarmos a noite com algum alívio" (an Indian named Tomás, a trumpeter, whom I told to play towards a hill, so that with the pleasant answer of the echo there we might pass the night with some relief); "pareceu a aldeia, um abrasado incêndio e muito maior ainda pela madrugada, e ouviam-se grandes choros de meninos, com confusões de várias vozes" (the village looked like a blazing fire, much bigger still towards dawn, and great crying of children was heard among a confusion of voices); "perguntei ao branco Manuel Coelho que nos acompanhava por seus negócios" (I asked the white man Manuel Coelho, who was travelling with us on his own business; we call him a settler) and he answered that the fires "eram os que os índios tinham feito debaixo de suas redes para se defenderem dos mosquitos, e que as gritas tinham sido os meninos e meninas, que, molestados das picaduras deles, estavam chorando"; "fomos dizer missa e fazer doutrina à aldeia ... pediram-me que os excomungasse para que se retirassem para outra parte. Respondi-lhes dizendo: Filhos, os mosquitos estão em sua terra, não se lhe dão de excomunhões como vós outros, que sois entendidos, tirai-vos daqui e mudai-vos para outra parte. Assim o fizeram e se mudaram para terra dentro" (they asked me to excommunicate them so that they would go elsewhere. I answered, children, the mosquitoes are in their own land, they care nothing for excommunications as you do, who have understanding; get out of here and move elsewhere. They did so and moved inland). pp. 293-294: "Não fomos mais para cima dos Tupinambaranas, porque só os missionários que iam com as tropas chegavam para mais longe àquele tempo" (we went no further up than the Tupinambaranas, because in those days only the missionaries who went with the troops got further). Page numbers read from the page images. ↩
  2. Wikipedia (Portuguese), "João Filipe Bettendorff", https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Filipe_Bettendorff : born in Lintgen, Luxembourg, on 25 August 1625 (the edition's chronology, note 1, gives 26 August); "Entre 1669 e 1674 e entre 1690 e 1693, foi superior dos jesuítas em missão no Estado do Maranhão e Grão-Pará" (between 1669 and 1674 and between 1690 and 1693 he was superior of the Jesuits' mission in the State of Maranhão and Grão-Pará). He was 72 when he wrote the guaraná passage in 1698 and died on 5 August that year. The chronicle's own chapter heading calls him "o padre superior da missão" (note 1). ↩
  3. Bettendorff, Crônica (as note 1), Livro I, cap. XII ("Dá-se breve notícia das mais terras onde há residência da Companhia de Jesus até a última delas"), pp. 39-40. Translation ours. p. 39: "Umas cinco jornadas pouco mais ou menos pelo rio das Amazonas acima estão os tupinambaranas. Estes estavam em uma ponta alta sobre o rio, onde em 1669, quando lá os foram visitar em minha companhia o padre Pedro Luís Glui e o irmão Domingos da Costa; mas pela grande praga dos mosquitos mudaram-se uma jornada pouco mais pela terra dentro sobre um belo lago ou rio que vindo parte dos andirazes, parte do rio das Amazonas, vai dar pelos curiatós" (the Tupinambaranas were on a high point above the river when in 1669 Father Pedro Luís and Brother Domingos da Costa visited them in my company; but because of the great plague of mosquitoes they moved a day's journey or a little more inland, onto a fine lake or river that comes partly from the Andirazes; the edition prints "Glui" here and "Gonsalvi" elsewhere); the Andirazes lie "pela banda de riba" (upriver). p. 40: "Têm os andirazes em seus matos uma frutinha que chamam guaraná, a qual secam e depois pisam, fazendo dela umas bolas, que estimam como os brancos o seu ouro, e desfeitas com uma pedrinha, com que as vão roçando e em uma cuia de água bebida, dá tão grandes forças, que indo os índios à caça, um dia até outro, não têm fome, além do que faz urinar, tira febres e dores de cabeça e câimbras. Do préstimo que tem para provocar urina me consta; do mais não sei de certo se não pelo que comumente ouço dizer." (The Andirazes have in their forests a little fruit they call guaraná, which they dry and then pound, making balls of it that they value as the whites value their gold; broken down with a little stone, rubbing it against them, and drunk in a gourd of water, it gives such great strength that the Indians going hunting from one day to the next feel no hunger; besides which it makes you urinate and takes away fevers, headaches and cramps. Of its use in provoking urine I am certain; of the rest I know nothing for sure except what I commonly hear said.) The next paragraph on p. 40 says "Neste ano 1698" (this year, 1698), so the chapter was being written in 1698. Years and pages read from the page images. ↩
  4. N. Smith and A. L. Atroch, "Guaraná's journey from regional tonic to aphrodisiac and global energy drink", Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 7 (3), 2010, pp. 279-282 (online December 2007), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2887323/ : "Guaraná was domesticated in the interfluvial forests between the lower Tapajós and lower Madeira in the Brazilian Amazon. It is unclear which indigenous group domesticated guaraná, but the Sateré-Maué who live along the Maués River and its affluents cultivate guaraná extensively"; "guaraná fruit resembles an human eye when it ripens and the red skin and underlying white mesocarp split to reveal a black, iris-like seed"; Bettendorff "noted that the Sateré-Maué (then known as the Andirazes) valued guaraná as much as Europeans did gold"; "the hard cylinder is grated with the bony tongue of the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), one of the largest fish in the Amazon"; "Guaraná was transformed from an elixir and home-prepared beverage to a mass-produced soda in the early 20th century." The same paper cites a Sateré-Maué myth of guaraná springing "from the eye of a boy who had been murdered" to N. Pereira, Os Índios Maués (1954), which we could not read. ↩
  5. Instituto Socioambiental, Povos Indígenas no Brasil, "Sateré Mawé", https://pib.socioambiental.org/pt/Povo:Sater%C3%A9_Maw%C3%A9 . Translation ours. The page names the crop "Paullinia cupana Kunth var. sorbilis (Mart.) Ducke". Opening: "Inventores da cultura do guaraná, os Sateré-Mawé domesticaram a trepadeira silvestre e criaram o processo de beneficiamento da planta" (inventors of guaraná culture, the Sateré-Mawé domesticated the wild climber and created its processing). "Território e história do contato com os brancos": their ancestors lived "entre os rios Madeira e Tapajós"; about 100 villages today on the Uaicurapá, Andirá, Urupadi, Marau, Miriti and Manjuru rivers; the Andirá-Marau Indigenous Land "homologada em 06/08/1986 com 788.528 ha"; the "invasões da estatal francesa de petróleo Elf-Aquitaine (1981 e 1982), com abertura de 344 km de picadas, 82 clareiras, e a morte por intoxicação de quatro indígenas" (invasions by the French state oil company Elf-Aquitaine, 1981 and 1982, opening 344 km of trails and 82 clearings, and the death by poisoning of four Indigenous people); "Os Sateré-Mawé entraram com uma ação de Interdito Proibitório contra a Elf-Aquitaine e a Petrobrás, representados por seu procurador Dalmo Dallari ... ganhando ambos os processos" (they brought an injunction against Elf-Aquitaine and Petrobras, represented by their attorney Dalmo Dallari, and won both cases). "Organização sociopolítica": the clans include "waranã (guaraná)"; the chief offers "çapó - guaraná em bastão ralado na água, bebida cotidiana, ritual e religiosa, que é consumida em grandes quantidades" (çapó, stick guaraná grated into water, an everyday, ritual and religious drink consumed in great quantities); "Segundo os mitos o waranã foi o primeiro tuissa (tuxaua)" (in the myths the guaraná was the first chief); "Colombo, filho do velho tuxaua Manoelzinho Miquilies, da aldeia Nova Esperança no rio Marau, contou em 1978 a 'História do Guaraná'. Neste relato, Uniawasap, dona do Nusoken (que os Sateré-Mawé costumam traduzir como paraíso) cuida do cadáver do filho, morto pelos tios: 'Ei meu filho, espia para cá! O filho espiou e aí a mamãe dele já tirou o olho do curumim, bem desse lado esquerdo, que é o guaranarana, esse que é o guaraná falso. Mamãe dele chamou outra vez, ei meu filho espia para cá! O filho espiou e a mamãe dele já agarrou e já plantou o olho direito do curumim, esse que é o chamado de guaraná verdadeiro ... Tu tava morto meu filho, mas agora tá no guaraná ... Tudo porção reúne, senta e a mulherada ralando guaraná, depois que toma vai trabalhar ... toma muito çapó no cuião grande ... bom meu filho agora você vai ser o primeiro tuxaua, para tudo vão precisar, para caçar, para trabalhar, para curar, para beber de novo'." The page spells the chief's surname "Miquilies" here and "Miquiles" elsewhere, so the story leaves it out. On the names, the page lists the Sateré-Mawé's older names, among them "Mahués", "Magnés" and "Mawés", and Portuguese Wikipedia, "Maués", https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau%C3%A9s , adds "mangués" and "magueses". We take the bishop's "Magués" (note 6) and Sampaio's "Maués" (note 7) to be the same people (confidence medium-high: close names, the same country between the Tapajós and the Madeira, and both men tie them to guaraná; on p. 101 the bishop calls the Magués' land "quasi toda a ribeira do celebre guaraná", almost all of it the river country of the famous guaraná). The ISA page also dates "a primeira descrição do guaraná" (the first description of guaraná) to 1669, quoting Bettendorff's 1698 passage (note 3), and says Carl von Martius collected a sample in the Maués region in 1819. ↩
  6. Dom Frei João de São José, "Viagem e visita do sertão em o bispado do Gram-Pará em 1762 e 1763. Escripta pelo bispo D. Fr. João de S. José, monge benedictino", Revista trimensal de historia e geographia (Instituto Historico e Geographico Brazileiro), tomo IX, 1st trimestre (Rio de Janeiro, 1847), https://archive.org/details/instituto-historico-e-geografico-brasileiro-revista_1847_9_1-trimestre . Translation ours. p. 43: "A 10 de Novembro de 1762 pela uma hora depois da meia noite sahimos para a visita do sertão, deixando a cidade de Belém" (on 10 November 1762 at one in the morning we left on the visit of the backlands, leaving the city of Belém). p. 77: "Em o dia 4 de Dezembro partimos". p. 78: "Pelas 3 horas e meia no dia 5 mandámos levar ancora, e cortando vigorosamente o rio entrámos em o famoso Tapajós ... A's 11 horas aportámos á villa de Santarém, que antes se chamava Tapajós, onde salvando-nos a fortaleza" (on the 5th ... we entered the famous Tapajós ... at 11 we put in at the town of Santarém, formerly called Tapajós, where the fort saluted us). p. 88 (in his account of Santarém, pp. 87-89): "As indias logo que acabam de jantar se vão metter no rio, nadando como peixe ... diante das nossas janellas se iam metter n'agua nuas ... abuso que na cidade podemos tirar, ainda que com o dissabor de prender sessenta ou setenta para a correcção" (the Indian women, as soon as they have dined, go into the river, swimming like fish ... in front of our windows they went into the water naked ... an abuse that in the city we were able to remove, though with the displeasure of arresting sixty or seventy for correction; the city is Belém, "a cidade de Belém" of p. 43, since Santarém is a "villa" (p. 78); "podemos" can also be read as present, "we can", but the "displeasure" and the count read as something done); "Por nós acharmos uma tarde com a paciencia exercitada em oppressão de cabeça e grande calor, tomámos por conselho de experimentados a celebre bebida do guaraná, que certamente nos alliviou muito, e nas febres se diz ser utilissima. Recebida em maior porção tira e suppre o somno, e tambem extingue a fome, sustentando como o chocolate com melhores effeitos: mas assentamos que se deve tomar como remedio, e não (como hoje praticam) para regalo; pois o uso frequente ou abuso é principio de que se originam vertigens. Os indios da nação Magué quando tem de dar batalha este é o mantimento mais precioso, e das pevides se servem como dinheiro para pagamentos" (finding ourselves one afternoon with our patience tried by a pressing headache and great heat, we took on the advice of experienced people the celebrated drink of guaraná, which certainly relieved us a great deal, and in fevers it is said to be most useful. Taken in a larger portion it takes away and replaces sleep, and also quenches hunger, sustaining like chocolate with better effects; but we hold that it should be taken as a remedy and not, as they do today, for pleasure, because frequent use or abuse is the beginning of dizziness. For the Indians of the Magué nation, when they have to give battle, this is the most precious provision, and they use the seeds as money for payments). p. 89: "dizem alegra o coração, como a pedra cordial, e tanta cousa, que nos parece só se não applica nas mortes repentinas, signal de que tem muitos apaixonados" (they say it gladdens the heart, like the cordial stone, and so much else that it seems to us it is applied to everything except sudden death, a sign that it has many devotees). p. 100: the "nação dos Magués, indios que commummente não sabem nadar, porém inconstantes como os mais, e especialmente traidores. Elles mataram cruelmente ao paulista João Portes sem motivo racionavel ... e lhe tinham dado palavra de descimento" (the Magué nation, Indians who commonly cannot swim, but fickle like the rest and especially traitors. They cruelly killed the Paulista João Portes without reasonable cause ... and had given him their word to come down). p. 101: "estes mataram tambem ao director da villa de Pinhel, Bernardino Monteiro, e a outros companheiros, tendo promettido descerem com elles para se instruir na fé" (they also killed the director of the town of Pinhel, Bernardino Monteiro, and other companions, having promised to come down with them to be instructed in the faith); "Taes são os Magués de que estão muitos descidos para a villa de Pinhel, e alguns para a de Santarém, das quaes fugiram para o mato ha pouco tempo cinco familias da ultima, e quarenta pessoas da primeira n'este anno de 1762" (such are the Magués, many of whom have been brought down to Pinhel and some to Santarém, from which five families of the latter and forty people of the former recently fled to the forest, in this year of 1762). The OCR text layer reads the title's year as "1765" and Belém's latitude as "14º"; dates, numbers and pages here are read from the page images. ↩
  7. Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, Diario da viagem que em visita, e correição, das povoações da capitania de S. Joze do Rio Negro fez o ouvidor, e intendente geral da mesma, no anno de 1774 e 1775 (Lisbon, Academia Real das Sciencias, 1825), https://archive.org/details/diariodaviagemqu00samp . Translation ours. p. 1 (entry I, 3 August 1774): "Huma segura, e decente canoa de oito remeiros por banda, foi preparada para o meu transporte" (a safe and decent canoe of eight rowers a side was prepared for me), twenty-six people in all. p. 2: entry II is dated "Setembro 13", and no new month heading comes before entry XIII. p. 5, entry XIII ("25"): "Navegamos todo este dia com bastante felicidade, aindaque sempre a remo ... Mais acima fica o canal, chamado Uraiá ... no qual canal desaguão os rios Abacaxis, Canumá, e Maué, aonde habitão ferocissimas nações de Indios selvagens. Os Maués são famosos pela fabrica da celebre bebida Guaraná, frigidissima, que já se uza na Europa, e em que se tem conhecido algumas virtudes, e alguns damnos no seu nimio uzo" (we sailed all this day happily enough, though always rowing ... further up is the channel called Uraiá, into which flow the Abacaxis, Canumá and Maué rivers, where most ferocious nations of wild Indians live. The Maués are famous for making the celebrated drink guaraná, very cooling, which is already used in Europe, and in which some virtues and some harms from its excessive use have been found; "frigidissima" is "most cold" in the old sense of cooling the body). p. 6: "torra-se a fruta, e depois se piza no pilão reduzindo-se a forma de pães, que se costumão secar ao fumo. Estes pães se ralão, vulgarmente com a lingoa do peixe Piraurucú" (the fruit is roasted, then pounded in a mortar into the shape of loaves, which are usually dried in smoke; these loaves are grated, commonly with the tongue of the pirarucu fish), then sugar and water are added; "Para as diarrheas ligeiras, dores de cabeça, e doenças de ourinas he remedio approvado. Relaxa porem o estomago o seu grande uzo a algumas pessoas, e cauza insomnios, e dizem que impotencia. Mas he extremo o uzo que desta bebida se faz em todo o estado do Pará, tomando-a muitas pessoas a toda a hora, e sem assucar, como os Indios, sendo bastante amargo" (for mild diarrhoeas, headaches and urinary illnesses it is an approved remedy. Its heavy use loosens the stomach of some people, though, and causes sleeplessness, and they say impotence. But the use made of this drink throughout the state of Pará is extreme, many people taking it at all hours, and without sugar, like the Indians, though it is quite bitter); entry XIV: "Os Maués são valerosos, com elles tinhamos commercio, o qual se acha prohibido, depoisque a falta de boa fé, que se experimentou nestes Indios, e por cauza das mortes, que fizerão em alguns cabos do mesmo commercio, mostrou, quão pouco util nos era a sua amizade. Esta prohibição foi feita no anno de 1769 pelo Illustrissimo e Excellentissimo Governador e Capitão general deste Estado Fernando da Costa de Ataide Teive, em huma carta instructiva, que circularmente enviou a todos os directores" (the Maués are brave; we had trade with them, which is now forbidden, since their bad faith and the deaths they caused among some leaders of that trade showed how little use their friendship was to us; the ban was made in 1769 by the governor and captain-general Fernando da Costa de Ataíde Teive in a circular letter of instruction to all the directors). The reasons for the ban are as Sampaio gives them; the governor's letter is not quoted. Pages, dates and numbers read from the page images. ↩
  8. [Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt], "Sur la racine de fédégose" and "Sur le guarana", Journal de pharmacie et des sciences accessoires, 3rd year (Paris, June 1817), pp. 257-260, both signed "C. L. C.", https://archive.org/details/journaldepharma22unkngoog . Translation ours. p. 257: "Un officier français qui a suivi notre ambassadeur à la cour du Brésil m'a envoyé, de Rio de Janeiro, deux remèdes employés par les habitans du pays, et qui lui ont paru inconnus en France" (a French officer who followed our ambassador to the court of Brazil sent me, from Rio de Janeiro, two remedies used by the people of the country, which seemed to him unknown in France). p. 259: "Le second remède portait, pour étiquette, cette phrase: Morceau de Guarana. Remède des Indiens très-estimé pour les dyssenteries, les rétentions d'urine, etc." (the label then gives a dose, left out here); "Cet échantillon de guarana, de forme hémisphérique, est d'une couleur rouge foncée; il présente, dans sa coupe, une espèce de marbrure, comme certaines gommes résines mélangées; son apparence et son odeur sont celles d'un extrait légèrement vireux" (this sample, hemispherical, is dark red; cut open it shows a kind of marbling like some mixed gum resins; its look and smell are those of a slightly rank extract); tests with water, alcohol and iron salts follow. p. 260: "Le nom de guarana est brasilien. Les naturalistes donnent ce nom à une espèce de courlis, d'autres à un passereau teïté; mais aucune plante jusqu'ici n'a été appelée guarana par les botanistes. Il est donc difficile de savoir quel est le végétal qui produit l'extrait résineux qu'on m'a envoyé" (the name guarana is Brazilian. Naturalists give it to a kind of curlew, others to a small songbird; but no plant has yet been called guarana by the botanists, so it is hard to know which plant produces the resinous extract sent to me). Virey (note 10) names the author as "Cadet Gassicourt" and cites this volume, p. 259. His full name: Wikipedia (French), "Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt", https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Louis_Cadet_de_Gassicourt . Pages read from the page images. ↩
  9. C. S. Kunth, Nova genera et species plantarum, vol. 5 (Paris, 1821), pp. 117-118, https://archive.org/details/mobot31753000540424 . The title page describes the plants as those "quas in peregrinatione ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi collegerunt ... Amat. Bonpland et Alex. de Humboldt", arranged by "Carol. Sigismund. Kunth". Species 7, "Paullinia Cupana": "Cupana incolarum" (cupana of the inhabitants); "Crescit in ripa obumbrata fluminis Orinoci, prope S. Fernando de Atabápo" (it grows on a shaded bank of the Orinoco near San Fernando de Atabapo); "Caules scandentes" (climbing stems). The Amazon crop is now named Paullinia cupana var. sorbilis (note 5). Pages read from the page images. ↩
  10. J.-J. Virey, "Histoire naturelle médicale du suc concret, venant du Brésil, sous le nom de guarana", Journal de pharmacie et des sciences accessoires, 26th year (Paris, August 1840), pp. 514-517, https://archive.org/details/journaldepharma00capigoog . Translation ours. p. 514: the paper opens by saying guaraná's use as a tonic has just been confirmed "puisqu'on y rencontre de la caféine". p. 515: "Le savant botaniste bavarois, von Martius, ne découvrit celle-ci qu'en 1826, et Théod. Martius, le jeune, fit de ce suc ou extrait, une première analyse, qui lui donna le guaranin" (the Bavarian botanist von Martius found the plant only in 1826; the ISA page, note 5, says he collected a sample at Maués in 1819, and Lloyd, note 14, also gives 1826 for the identification; and the younger Theodor Martius made a first analysis of the extract, which gave him guaranin); "Le nom de guarana n'appartient pas à l'arbuste dont on tire ce produit, mais bien aux peuplades à demi-sauvages qui l'extraient ... Les voyageurs ont trouvé la plupart des tribus de Guaranis, dispersées entre les fleuves Parana et Uruguay; dans ces contrées marécageuses, qui s'étendent du 27e au 30e latit. sud ... vivant seulement de manioc, d'ignames, de maïs, très-faibles, pâles, inertes, et tristes ... C'est pourquoi ces naturels furent assujettis aisément aux missions des jésuites ... On comprend donc la nécessité, pour les Guaranis, de joindre à leurs aliments journaliers, un tonique" (the name guarana belongs not to the shrub but to the half-savage peoples who extract it ... travellers have found most of the Guaraní tribes scattered between the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, in marshy country from 27 to 30 degrees south ... living only on manioc, yams and maize, very weak, pale, inert and sad ... which is why they were easily subjected to the Jesuit missions ... so one understands why the Guaraní need to add a tonic to their daily food). p. 516: "C'est surtout la tribu des Maubés, ou Mauhès, dans la province du Para et de Tapajoz, près du fleuve Maragnon (Haut-Amazone), vers la villa Topinambarana, qui prépare beaucoup de guarana" (it is above all the tribe of the Maubés or Mauhès, in the province of Pará and Tapajós, near the Marañón, towards the town of Topinambarana, that prepares much guarana); "Martius a classé cet arbrisseau grimpant sous le nom de paullinia sorbilis (à cause de son emploi en boisson)" (Martius classed this climbing shrub as Paullinia sorbilis, because of its use as a drink; "sorbilis" is Latin for something that can be sipped). p. 517: his samples came from "M. Dechastelus, pharmacien de Paris, qui a reçu cette substance du Brésil, en quantité notable"; the foot of the page reads "XXVIe Année. — Août 1840", and Berthemot and Dechastelus begin on p. 518 (note 12). Distance: the town of Maués lies at 3° 23′ south (Wikipedia, Portuguese, "Maués (Amazonas)", https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau%C3%A9s_(Amazonas) ); 27° south is about 23.6 degrees of latitude further, roughly 2,600 km in a straight line. Virey is described as a pharmacist and naturalist in Wikipedia (French), "Julien-Joseph Virey", https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien-Joseph_Virey . Pages read from the page images. ↩
  11. Wikipedia (German), "Theodor Wilhelm Christian Martius", https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Wilhelm_Christian_Martius : "deutscher Apotheker und Botaniker, Leiter der Hof-Apotheke in Erlangen" (German apothecary and botanist, head of the court pharmacy in Erlangen), born 1796; "Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius war sein älterer Bruder" (Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius was his elder brother). ↩
  12. Berthemot and Dechastelus, "Nouvel examen chimique du guarana, de l'existence de la caféine dans ce produit", Journal de pharmacie et des sciences accessoires, 26th year (Paris, August 1840), pp. 518-531, https://archive.org/details/journaldepharma00capigoog . Translation ours. p. 518: "Ce que l'on sait de plus précis sur cette matière, appartient à Théodore Martius, qui, en 1826, s'occupa de recherches sur cet objet" (the most precise knowledge of this material belongs to Theodor Martius, who researched it in 1826). p. 519: "Il a aussi examiné le guarana chimiquement et en a retiré une substance cristallisée, qu'il a appelée guaranine et qu'il prit d'abord pour un alcaloïde" (he also examined guarana chemically and drew from it a crystallised substance, which he called guaranine and at first took for an alkaloid); "Nous étant procuré une certaine quantité de guarana, il nous a paru intéressant de chercher à obtenir la guaranine pour mieux en étudier les propriétés et pour en déterminer la composition" (having obtained a certain quantity of guarana, we thought it worth trying to obtain the guaranine, to study its properties and determine its composition); long soaking in a little water brings "moisissures" (moulds) and a fermentation. p. 520: "nous avons donc pris soin d'éviter ce dernier genre de réaction en renouvelant souvent l'eau mise en contact avec la poudre et en la recueillant, chaque fois, après quelques heures d'infusion" (so we took care to avoid this reaction by often renewing the water on the powder and drawing it off each time after a few hours' infusion). p. 529: "De l'ensemble de ses propriétés, on est forcé de conclure que la matière que nous avons obtenue (la guaranine de Martius) n'est autre chose que la caféine; en effet, même aspect, même cristallisation, même saveur, même solubilité, même réaction de la part des agents chimiques, même composition chimique" (from all its properties one must conclude that the substance we obtained, Martius's guaranine, is nothing other than caffeine: same look, same crystals, same taste, same solubility, same reactions, same chemical composition); the analysis "a été faite au laboratoire de M. Pelouse", with combustion "avec le chromate de plomb" and "avec l'oxyde de cuivre"; "On voit donc ici qu'il existe identité parfaite dans la composition"; caffeine was "primitivement découverte dans le café par MM. Robiquet, Pelletier et Caventou, dans le thé, par M. Oudry et enfin, dans le guarana par nous-mêmes", plants of "trois familles différentes". The journal prints "Pelouse" here and "Pelouze" in the next article (p. 531); we take him to be the Paris chemist Théophile-Jules Pelouze (confidence high), and the story spells the name his usual way. p. 530: "En faisant disparaître la guaranine du rang des principes immédiats, nous n'ôtons rien au mérite du travail de Martius, mais nous simplifions la science par la réunion de deux substances identiques." The paper's conclusions end on pp. 530-531: "la matière cristalline à laquelle on avait d'abord donné le nom de guaranine ... n'est pas autre chose que de la caféine" (the crystalline matter first given the name guaranine is nothing other than caffeine), only more plentiful in the paullinia's fruit than in any plant it had been drawn from so far. Dechastelus is "pharmacien de Paris" in Virey's paper (note 10, p. 517), and the minutes of the Société de pharmacie de Paris in the same volume (p. 548) record that "M. Berthemot lit, au nom de MM. Dechastelus et au sien, un mémoire sur le guarana" (Mr Berthemot read, for Mr Dechastelus and himself, a paper on guaraná). Pages read from the page images. ↩
  13. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 12, p. 651, "Guarana", https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Guarana : "GUARANA (so called from the Guaranis, an aboriginal American tribe), the plant Paullinia Cupana (or P. sorbilis) ... indigenous to the north and west of Brazil." ↩
  14. J. P. Remington, H. C. Wood and others, The Dispensatory of the United States of America (1918), "Guarana", transcribed at https://henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/usdisp/paullinia.html : "Guarana is made exclusively by the Guaranis, a tribe of South America Indians"; "Martius found in it a crystallizable principle, which he named guaranine, but which was later proved by Berthemot and Dechastelus to be identical with caffeine." J. U. Lloyd, History of the Vegetable Drugs of the U.S.P. (1911), "Paullinia cupana", https://henriettes-herb.com/eclectic/lloyd-hist/paullinia.html : the paste was "made and used by the tribe of Indians (Guaranis) from whom it took its name. In 1826 Martius ... identified the plant". ↩
  15. Two examples among many. Soin et Nature, "Guarana, plant with divine origins, symbol of resistance", https://blog.soin-et-nature.com/en/guarana-plant-with-divine-origins-symbol-of-resistance/ : "Guarana is a Brazilian name derived from the name of the Guarani tribe, indigenous to Amazonia." The same page: "The Guaranis attribute divine origins to this plant, the first of which is said to have come not from a seed but from the eyes of a divine child killed by a snake." Ekogram, "Guarana - its properties and history", https://ekogram.pl/en/blogs/rozwiazania/guarana-jej-wlasciwosci-i-historia : "Its name comes from the Guarani tribe." ↩
  16. Conselho Geral da Tribo Sateré-Mawé (CGTSM), Protocolo de produção do Pão de Waraná Sateré-Mawé, Denominação de Origem Protegida (2008; bilingual Portuguese and Sateré-Mawé), PDF hosted by Slow Food Brasil, https://slowfoodbrasil.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/guarana-satere-mawe-protocolo-de-producao.pdf . The ISA page (note 5) dates the protocol to 2008. Translation ours. Art. 2, p. 2: "A definição de 'pão' para o bastão de guaraná está ligada ao significado do guaraná no âmbito da cultura Sateré-Mawé, na qual a ingestão do guaraná misturado à água ocupa um papel análogo ao do pão e do vinho na cultura cristã" (the stick is called bread because drinking guaraná mixed with water plays a part like that of bread and wine in Christian culture); "Waraná é o nome originário do guaraná na língua Sateré-Mawé, do qual deriva, em português, a palavra Guaraná" (waraná is the original name of guaraná in the Sateré-Mawé language, from which the Portuguese word guaraná derives). p. 18, steps 11-21: "O mestre padeiro modela a massa com as mãos até que ela fique em forma de bastão, cuidando para que não se formem bolhas vazias dentro dele"; "Tradicionalmente, a esposa do padeiro lava o 'Pão de Waraná' dentro de uma cuia durante 10 minutos, assim como se faz com uma criança recém-nascida"; "A água da lavagem é bebida pelos presentes à cerimônia, que sempre acontece em público, garantindo um controle social sobre a atuação do padeiro" (the washing water is drunk by those present at the ceremony, which always takes place in public, ensuring social control over the baker's work); "O processo de defumação do 'Pão de Waraná' dura três meses", at about half a metre in the first month, 1 metre in the second and 2 metres in the third, using "basicamente ... madeiras de muruci e araçá". ↩
  17. Raimunda Fátima Ribeiro de Nazaré (Embrapa Amazônia Oriental), "O guaraná: histórico, composição e a utilização do produto e subprodutos", talk at a guaraná symposium in São Paulo, 15 March 2002, https://www.alice.cnptia.embrapa.br/alice/bitstream/doc/375186/1/O-guarana-historico.pdf . p. 2: "João Filipe Betendorf, Superior Jesuíta no Maranhão, foi o primeiro civilizado a fazer referência ao guaraná, isto no ano de 1669"; p. 3, in a chronology: "1669 - Relato escrito por João Filipe Betendorf". The ISA page (note 5) gives 1669 too. Pp. 1-2 also give a legend in which Juruparí, as a snake, kills a boy and Tupã orders his eyes planted, credited to "Watzel (1937), citado por Nazaré (1982)" (J. Watzel, "O guaraná, seu valor industrial e medicinal", Boletim do Ministério da Agricultura 26, 1937, which we could not read). ↩
  18. just-food, "Functional foods: the problem with guarana", 23 July 2003, https://www.just-food.com/features/functional-foods-the-problem-with-guarana/ : "Many manufacturers who use guarana as an ingredient stress that it contains guaranine, which is said to be similar to caffeine but not the same ... But is the situation as straightforward as this? The basic answer is no". ↩
  19. Seth Garfield, "A Taste of Brazil: How Guaraná Soda Became a National Icon", Not Even Past (University of Texas at Austin), http://notevenpast.org/a-taste-of-brazil-how-guarana-soda-became-a-national-icon/ (the https address failed a certificate check from our server): guaraná is "the key ingredient of Brazil's 'national' soda"; "Over centuries of sustained Luso-Brazilian contact, the Sateré-Mawé were victimized by slavers, militias, and missionaries. They were cheated by traders swapping overvalued goods for guaraná for sale in frontier mining towns". He tells the Sateré-Mawé origin tale "as recorded by Brazilian military engineer João Martins da Silva Coutinho and published in Rio de Janeiro in 1870": "Jurupary transformed into a snake, grabbed him by the neck, and killed him", and the mother says "Tupã, the beneficent [God], has come to console us ... it is necessary for his eyes to be planted"; guaraná is "a botanical creeper native to the Brazilian Amazon that the Indigenous people first domesticated". We did not read Silva Coutinho's 1870 text. Garfield's book is Guaraná: How Brazil Embraced the World's Most Caffeine-Rich Plant (University of North Carolina Press, 2022), which we did not read. ↩
  20. Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (INPI), Certificado de registro de indicação geográfica BR412016000005-2, "Terra Indígena Andirá-Marau", https://www.gov.br/inpi/pt-br/servicos/indicacoes-geograficas/arquivos/certificados-de-ig/certificado_br412016000005-2_terra-indigena-andira-marau.pdf : "Espécie: Denominação de origem"; "Produto/Serviço: Waraná (guaraná nativo) e pães de waraná (bastão de guaraná)"; "Data do Depósito: 20 de outubro de 2016 · Data de Concessão: 20 de outubro de 2020"; "Requerente: Consórcio de Produtores Sateré-Mawé - CPSM" (applicant, the Sateré-Mawé producers' consortium). The attached Regulamento de Uso (petition 870190038837 of 24 April 2019, p. 13 of 41, PDF page 4) says the bread must be: "a) consistência dura, mas frágil, podendo ser partido com um único golpe ... c) cor preta e brilhante ... e) som e vibração à percussão; f) sabor e consistência, de amostra ralada com pedra de basalto, suavemente amargo" (hard but brittle, able to be broken with a single blow; black and shiny; sound and vibration when struck; taste and texture, of a sample grated with a basalt stone, gently bitter). ↩