The main tradicional crop of the tropical regions of the american continent.

Nowadays, manioc, cassava or yuca (Manihot esculentac) of South American origin, constitutes one of the main food crops of the humid tropical territories of the planet.

World production of cassava exceeds that of all other tubers with the exception of potatoes. Manioc is successfully cultivated in Africa, South Asia, Oceania Islands and of course in its place of origin, the tropical lands of the Americas.

It is a tuber plant just over two meters high that grew wild in warm humid areas of the American continent and was apparently domesticated by the Arawak people about six thousand years ago in the Amazon region. From that moment, the cultivation of manioc did not cease to spread, first to other American territories and then after the arrival of Europeans to America to other continents.

All varieties of manioc contain a derivative rich in cyanide that in certain varieties can produce harmful effects when ingested, and therefore requires a pre-meal washing treatment. In some cultures, "toxic" yucas are washed up to seven times to ensure their safety. The variety that contains more cyanide is the so-called “yuca brava” or “bitter manioc” and is very common among the Arawak root peoples.

“Harmless” manioc or “sweet” cassava is also cultivated by certain Arawaks and by others who succeeded in their migrations (eg, the Caribs and the Tupi-Guarani).

The cultivation of bitter manioc has the advantage over its sweet counterpart that it better resists pests of certain animals (eg rodents) that systematically avoid it. In that sense, it is necessary to affirm that the toxicity of bitter manioc is not the result of a “primitive” technology but on the contrary the result of a careful selection carried out by traditional cultures to protect the cultivation of certain pests that affect.

Due to its exclusively American origin, Europeans were unaware of manioc upon arrival in the continent. Some of the first stories give an idea of ​​the initial process of familiarization of Europeans with this crop. Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo said in his Summary of the Natural History of the Indies: In the said Indies “there is another way of bread called the beetle, which is made from roots of a plant that the Indians call yucca; this is not grain, but plant, which ... they make some rods taller than a man, and it has the leaf in the same way as hemp, like a palm of a man's hand, open and stretched fingers; except that this leaf is larger and thicker ... and they take this branch of this plant to sow, and make it as large as two spans ... the ground being flat, they shatter these seedlings, but first they have touched or cut down and burned the mountain to sow the yucca bliss ... "

In this fragment, Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo refers to one of the food bases of the indigenous peoples of the tropical territories of the continent: manioc (name used in Tupis and Guarani lands) or casava for its use to make bread of the same name.

Girolamo Benzoni in his "History of the New World" describes manioc in this way:

In Hispaniola ... ”they also make another type of bread called a turnip-sized beetle. This root does not produce any bud to be a knobbly and solid reeds; Its leaves are green, like those of hemp. When the reeds are in season, they cut them into pieces of two spans in length, the plants in a pile of soil called conucos and after two years the root becomes thick. When he wants to make bread with them, they tear them out of the earth in small quantities, because they quickly break down, cut them, cut them with some sharp stones that they find on the beach, and putting them in a pot they squeeze the juice, which is like a poison if you drink. Then they throw it in a large bowl, like pasta over the fire, and leave it that way until it sets; then they remove it and put it in the sun to dry, obtaining thick or thin breads. ”

Originally there were thousands of varieties of manioc that are traditionally cultivated by aboriginal nations in various parts of the continent. After the cultural degradation caused by colonization, many of these varieties have been lost. Yet it is considered that there are still several hundreds of manioc / yuca varieties traditionally cultivated in the rural and indigenous communities of the continent. For the northwest of the South American continent Mejía mentions the following examples that are a small sample of the still existing agro-cultural capital:

1)     The savanna zenúes cultivate twelve varieties of “yuca” including among others, zambita yuca, white mona, caucana, coclí, martina and gruesana;

2)     Baris-motilones are unaware of “yuca brava” and are currently facing the replacement of late aboriginal yucas with earlier introduced varieties;

3)     The caribs that descend from an ancient culture that privileged cassava, recognize seven varieties including the main varieties of consumption: fish yuca, the seventy or ligerite, the cassava of the dead of a ritual nature and the “contrarriera” cassava (which resists the attack of ants called arrieras);

The Arhuacos cultivate more than seven varieties that include several of consumption and other rituals (the rituals are called Ishinkuna and Idrisi in Nabusímake-Arhuaco language);

Arawak root guajiros cultivated yuca ancestrally but have now lost it.

There are many examples of highly effective manioc crop systems. One of them occurs between the Kayapó (Rondonia) northwest of Mato Grosso.

The manioc varieties used by the Kayapó are bitter (and therefore toxic to certain pests) and also have nodules that produce sugar to attract certain ants that eat climbing plants that could affect crop growth. At the same time, to ensure maximum performance, the Kayapó nest termite nests that improve fertility and keep leaf-eating ants away. In other words, the kayapo “domestication”  of resulted in a plant with “pesticides and herbicides incorporated” 68.

According to Renvoize, 1972, cited by M. Mejía, the oldest manioc appears on the Peruvian coast with an age of 3000 years. However, there is a weak diversity of wild species, so it is considered that the domestication of manioc must have occurred in another part of the continent (probably from the humid tropical center of the continent from which the Arawaks nations radiated). Mejía notes that the greatest diversity of sweet manioc is cultivated by the aguaruna of the jíbaro family and that the piaroas (arawaks) and pujnaves (the latter colonized by the arawaks) cultivate the greatest diversity of manioc (ref. Several M publications Mejia).

Recently in a humid tropical area of ​​Honduras (Catacamas) a cave was discovered with an age of about 3000 years that contained the skeletal remains of 200 people. This culture, unlike its contemporary Maya from Yucatan, based its economy on manioc instead of corn, another example of a long-standing manioc crop

Manioc paste is used to make cakes that are generally called casave that allow the food to be stored for later consumption. In addition to tapioca a fermented drink is also made.