Aztecan
and Southwestern Agave
What
points its finger at the sky?*
Pulque
is a fermented alcoholic drink made from a few species of the maguey,
also known as the century plant. These plants all hail from the family
Agavaceae. Maguey is simply a native way of saying "agave".
The maguey or agave is neither an aloe or a cactus, though it has been
erroneously classified as such. The fermented liquid obtained from this
plant is said to form a "milky, slightly foamy and somewhat viscous
beverage". It is beer-like in that it provides nutrients and has
a low alcohol content. The original name for the fermented "beer"
was octili poliqhui.
Imagery
of pulque extends back around two thousand years. A mural known as "The
Pulque Drinkers", which dates back to 1000 AD, was found at the great
pyramid of Cholula, not far from that one-time seat of Aztecan power,
Mexico City. Other information leads us to know that pulque has been around
in this arid region of meso America for at least twice as long. Actual
cultivation as opposed to wildcraft harvesting, is likely to have happened
at least since 1239 AD.
The
sap of the maguey is tapped for the production of pulque. This sap,
known as agua miel, can ferment naturally while
still in the plant, but more typically it is tapped and removed
to ferment under control of the people who should soon be drinking
it.
Agave
has spiky and fleshy leaves, which are able to grow to six feet
in length, depending on species. Wild agaves sprout a shoot when
about five years old which grows into a very tall stem, which is
topped with flowers. The flowers are pollinated by a native bat
(Leptonycteris nivalis) and produce several thousand seeds
per plant. In cultivated agave, shoots are removed when the plant
is about a year old so that the heart, which holds that precious
aqua miel, can grow larger.
On
a rather unpleasant note, traditional pulque was sometimes started
from the aqua miel by using additives to trigger the start of fermentation.
The addition of fruits was useful, but sometimes the pulque makers
used a rag filled with feces dipped into this broth to jumpstart
fermentation.
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 blue agave |
Pulque
doesn't preserve well; so although it is still made today, little
if any is exported.
Pulque
is considered an aphrodesiac, and an instrument to aid both virility
and fertility.
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Only
priests, it is alleged, were allowed to drink that fifth glass of
pulque.
The
main god of pulque is said to have been Ometotchtli (Two Rabbit).
However, Mayahuel, a goddess, by legend discovered pulque. Gods
of pulque were also associated with agriculture. Many other gods
also had a connection to pulque. It now seems possible that these
gods stood in for, or symbolized, the differing forms of inebriation
that could be experienced. The rabbit was associated with the moon,
as it apppeared to them that the details they could see in that
orbiting body seemed to be the face of a rabbit.
In
other legends, it is the noble Papantzin who first discovers the
potable properties of the maguey plant. |
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Agave
today? Pulque has been superceded by its distilled cousins. If maguey
is cooked, and then distilled it becomes mezcal. Tequila is just mezcal
that comes from agave grown in the Jalisco region of Mexico, from specific
and verified distilleries that use only the blue agave (Agave tequilana),
which is a plant that prefers to live at altitude, and in sandy soil.
Mezcal can be distilled from just about any agave. However, the pre-Columbian
ancients did not know distillation. Tequila is produced by removing the
heart of the plant in its twelfth year. This heart is stripped of leaves
and heated to remove the sap, which is fermented and distilled. Methods
of production of pulque and mezcal are less stringent, but all involve
maximizing the size of the agave's heart.
*
Answer to the Aztecan riddle posed at top: The maguey thorn.
References:
Pulque
Wikipedia
What is Pulque?
Mezcal
Images: Wikipedia,Morguefile
Archeo
Art Media and Web Works
More
to drink!
Chicha
and Beverages of Peru
Beverages of
the Maya
Aztecan and Southwestern
Agave
Teas of North
America
More Beverages from
Around the Americas
Chocolate: A
History (by Apo Mayta Huacac)
Return
to The
Inn Of
the Blue Macaw
OR to America's SpringFest
2006 Thankyous
to: Topi, Apo Mayta Huacac, Senex Caecilius, Akatena Sequoyah.
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