Acullico, chacchado, akulliku, acuyico (quechua word akullikuy), acusi, pijcho or mascada is a social, ritual and medicinal practice where a small bolus of coca is placed in the mouth between the cheek and jaw. [1] It is a practice of various regions in South America, such as Northwest Argentina, Western Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia to reduce altitude sickness due to the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere in high altitudes, and reduce fatigue, hunger and indigestion. [2]
Usually, the coca leaves are chewed alongside a small amount of an alkaline substance, such as bicarbonate of soda, [3] lime or the ashes of a plant known natively as 'lejía', or 'llipta' when it is quinoa, in order to increase effectiveness.
Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid that acts as a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant. As an extract, it is mainly used recreationally and often illegally for its euphoric and rewarding effects. It is also used in medicine by Indigenous South Americans for various purposes and rarely, but more formally, as a local anaesthetic or diagnostic tool by medical practitioners in more developed countries. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South America: Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense. After extraction from the plant, and further processing into cocaine hydrochloride, the drug is administered by being either snorted, applied topically to the mouth, or dissolved and injected into a vein. It can also then be turned into free base form, in which it can be heated until sublimated and then the vapours can be inhaled.
The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization rose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532, and by 1572 the last Inca state was fully conquered.
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.
Aconcagua is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in both the Western Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere with a summit elevation of 6,961 metres (22,838 ft). Despite its impressive size and stature, it is only the 189th highest mountain in the world. It lies 112 kilometres northwest of the provincial capital, the city of Mendoza, about five kilometres from San Juan Province, and 15 km (9 mi) from Argentina's border with Chile. The mountain is one of the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.
The Pipil are an indigenous group of Mesoamerican people inhabiting the western and central areas of present-day El Salvador. They are a subgroup of the larger Nahua ethnic group. They speak the Nawat language, which is a closely related but distinct language from the Nahuatl of Central Mexico. There are very few speakers of Nawat left, but there are efforts being made to revitalize it.
Tabernanthe iboga (iboga) is an evergreen rainforest shrub native to Central Africa. A member of the Apocynaceae family indigenous to Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo, it is cultivated across Central Africa for its medicinal and other effects.
Salta is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy. To the north it borders Bolivia and Paraguay and to the west lies Chile.
Guaviare is a department of Colombia. It is in the southern central region of the country. Its capital is San José del Guaviare. Guaviare was created on July 4, 1991, by the new Political Constitution of Colombia. Up until that point, it was a national territory that operated as a commissariat, segregated from territory of the then Commissariat of Vaupés on December 23, 1977.
The Machiguenga are an indigenous people who live in the high jungle, or montaña, area on the eastern slopes of the Andes and in the Amazon Basin jungle regions of southeastern Peru. Their population in 2020 amounted to about 18,000. Formerly they were hunter-gatherer but today the majority are sedentary swidden cultivators. The main crops grown are manioc, maize, and bananas, but today commercial crops such as coffee and cacao are increasingly important. Their main source of protein used to be peccary and monkeys but today fish has become more important as game animals have become increasingly scarce as a consequence of the encroachment from highland immigrants to the area and the exploitation of the Camisea gas finds. The Machiguenga people have a preference for self-sufficiency when it comes to cultivating essential crops, made possible by their generous land allocation per capita, and the lack of conflict in their area.
Cocaleros are the coca leaf growers of Peru and Bolivia. In response to U.S.-funded attempts to eradicate and fumigate coca crops in the Chapare region of Bolivia, cocaleros joined with other grassroots indigenous organizations in the country, such as unionized mine workers and peasants to contest the government. Evo Morales, who became president of Bolivia in 2006, was a leader of the cocalero movement in that country.
Hit is a carbonated fruit-flavored soft drink brand owned by The Coca-Cola Company that is available in Venezuela, and is sold as the Venezuelan counterpart to Coca-Cola's existing Fanta brand.
A Poporo is a device used by indigenous cultures in present and pre-Columbian South America for storage of small amounts of lime produced from burnt and crushed sea-shells. It consists of two pieces: the receptacle and the lid, which includes a pin that is used to carry the lime to the mouth while a person is chewing coca leaves. Since the chewing of coca is sacred for the indigenous people, the poporos are also believed to have mystical powers and social status.
The Bogotá savanna is a montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of 4,251.6 square kilometres (1,641.6 sq mi) and an average altitude of 2,650 metres (8,690 ft). The savanna is situated in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes.
The Plomo Mummy is the well preserved remains of an Incan child found on Cerro El Plomo near Santiago, Chile in 1954. It was discovered by Guillermo Chacón Carrasco, Jaime Ríos Abarca, and Luis Gerardo Ríos Barrueto. The mummy was brought to the attention of Grete Mostny at the Chilean National Museum of Natural History; she later proved instrumental in the museum's acquisition of the specimen. The Plomo Mummy was the first notable frozen mummy discovery of high-altitude Capacocha human sacrifice by the Incas, a practice called qhapaq hucha.
The Children of Llullaillaco, also known as the Mummies of Llullaillaco, are three Inca child mummies discovered on 16 March 1999 by Johan Reinhard and his archaeological team near the summit of Llullaillaco, a 6,739 m (22,110 ft) stratovolcano on the Argentina–Chile border. The children were sacrificed in an Inca religious ritual that took place around the year 1500. In this ritual, the three children were drugged with coca and alcohol then placed inside a small chamber 1.5 metres (5 ft) beneath the ground, where they were left to die. Archaeologists consider them as being among the best-preserved mummies in the world.
Coca has been cultivated in medium-altitude parts of the Bolivian Andes since at least the Inca era, primarily in the Yungas north and east of La Paz. Cultivation expanded substantially in the 1980s into the Chapare region of Cochabamba and some production flowed into the international cocaine market. The US-backed efforts to criminalize and eradicate coca as part of the War on Drugs were met by the cocalero movement's growing capacity to organize. Violence between drug police and the Bolivian armed forces on one side and the movement on the other occurred episodically between 1987 and 2003. The cocaleros became an increasingly important political force during this period, co-founding the Movement for Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples party. Coca growers from both the Yungas and the Chapare have advocated for policies of "social control" over coca growing, maintaining a pre-set maximum area of cultivation as an alternative to drug war policies. In 2005, cocalero union leader Evo Morales was elected president of Bolivia. Morales pursued a combined policy of legalizing coca production in the Chapare and Yungas and eradication of the crop elsewhere.
María Constanza Ceruti is an Argentine anthropologist and mountaineer, who has done more than 80 field surveys, most of them as part of National Geographic teams in Andean regions of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Her most important finding are the Children of Llullaillaco, considered the best preserved mummies in the world by the Guinness World Records. She is also the first woman worldwide to specialize in high-altitude archaeology, studying Inca ceremonial centers on the summits of Andean peaks above 6000 meters. She is a pioneer in the anthropological study of sacred mountains around the world, and in the emerging field of glacial archaeology.
This article describes the role of women in Muisca society. The Muisca were the original inhabitants of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish conquest in the first half of the 16th century. Their society was one of the four great civilizations of the Americas.
The pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia refers to the ancient cultures and civilizations of Colombia.
Fernet con coca, also known as fernando, its diminutive fernandito, or several other nicknames, is a long drink of Argentine origin consisting of the Italian amaro liqueur fernet and cola, served over ice. Although typically made with Fernet-Branca and Coca-Cola, several amaro brands have appeared in Argentina since its popularization, as well as ready-to-drink versions.
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