Sagrada Coca Verde | Emma Cucchi’s Blog

A CRASHED UTOPIA

Jan 29 2017

Meeting Peoples, in a world without borders, where the cultural realities can express themselves in the richness and variety of knowledges and ancestral traditions, as the sacred green Coca: an utopia … well worth any price.

It was July 1994 in the rainforest of tropical Bolivian Chapare, where for about a year I was running, as only expatriate, the operation of solidarity Rayos de sol, with the support of the fans of my adventures, even when … lost battles.

In collaboration with the indigenous communities and the leadership of the Federation of the Peasants Workers of the Tropic of Cochabamba (FETCTC), whose executive secretary was the aymara unionist Evo Morales Ayma, a micro-project got on the way, with the main objective of the integral development of the communities in that region, including the defense, enhancement and promotion of Coca, the sacred plant of the Andean-Amazon world.

Jan 29 2017

The global situation I found myself immersed in the jungle of Bolivian Chapare bore the indelible mark the History had imprinted over the centuries; the following comments reflect my own experience, by the time of my journey through that region, at the beginning of the 90ties.

The rural population mostly indigenous has historical and cultural roots in the heart of the ancient Inca Empire of Tawantinsuyu, meaning in quechua language Empire of the four corners or cardinal points; it stretches along the spine of the Andes from Venezuela to Chile and its fate was the annihilation during the Spanish conquest.

Jan 29 2017

Whoever meets the sacred green Coca in the Andean-Amazonian region can take away just its memory, because it remains firmly enclosed in its ancestral nest … or maybe Coca is really … a prisoner?

Going over the past years several confirmations arise in favor of a positive response.

In 1912 at The Hague (Netherlands), cocaine, together with green Coca as its raw materials, was included in the Opium Convention, signed in 1913 by the Government of Peru, so giving a start to a negative campaign against Coca plant, promoted by Peruvian psychiatrists (Valdizán, 1913).

Jan 29 2017

2500-1800 BC In Northern Peru a remarkable finding of traces of Coca leaves in the area of the ruins of Huanca Prieto.

2100 BC In Valdivian culture of Ecuador and in ceramics of Nazca and Mochica cultures in Peru (600-360 BC) relevant findings of traditional use of Coca.

1200-1475 A kind of oils essence extracted from Coca leaves was used by Incas, when practising surgical excision of brain tumors.

Jan 29 2017

Curiously – and also as a significant demonstration that the sacred green Coca incessantly reassembles the harmony of cosmovision – the elf of Coca certainly enjoyed a lot, darting into the bag of the draw for the 1994 FIFA World Cup.

In fact the inaugural game was played in Bolivia, the Andean cradle of Coca, between Germany, the country where cocaine was isolated in laboratory, and the United States of America, one of the countries where the use of white powder is more spread and … home of Coca Cola.

COCA from the ANDES to the HIMALAYAN 8000

Jan 29 2017

An historical evidence of the good effects of Coca, the sacred plant of the Andes, comes up from the very past, from the mysterious sceneries of Himalaya.

Here it goes.

In April 1953 a German-Austrian climbing team left Munich (Germany), led by doctor Karl Herrligkoffer, and directed to the magic setting of Himalaya, aiming to get the top of Nanga Parbat (8125 meters), one of the 14 mountains above 8000 meters, not yet reached by human being; in the team the climbers Hermann Buhl and Hans Hertl, who had delayed his climbing plans in the Andes to catch the challenge.

Jan 29 2017

In conjunction with the epic of the Wine Mariani, in Bologna (Italy) a Coca liqueur, named Coca Buton appeared on the scene; because of the relatively small amount of Coca leaves used in its production, after the extraction of the alkaloid cocaine, it reached a wide success on the Italian and foreign markets for a time even longer than the Wine Mariani,

In the green and syrupy liqueur Coca Buton various aromatic herbs stay together with green Coca, being the alcohol content around 36.5 degrees.

Jan 29 2017

The Wine Mariani, mentioned in another chapter, became the unaware precursor of one of the worldwide most successful and beloved beverages; in 1880 a southern Army Colonel, pharmaceutical chemist in Atlanta – as well as inveterate morphine addicted since he had been wounded in the civil war – named John Styth Pemberton, officially registered a Coca Wine, ideal tonic and stimulant, founding later the Pemberton Chemical Company.

Jan 29 2017

Although there would be no need for any help, being the sacred green Coca itself the effective very speaker of its own values and benefits, worthy of praise are some people who were distinguished performers and promoters of its goodness.

Peruvian scholar Hipólito Unanue, already in the 18th century, claimed: In situations of food shortage, especially of sources of protein such as meat, Providence has supplied us with this wonderful Coca plant.

Jan 29 2017

The volume XVIII No 4, October-December 1978 of América Indígena is a monographic compilation of articles by different authors on the subject of Andean Coca, I was lucky enough to get one sample; the following scientific references are taken from the chapter A new perspective on the chewing of coca, written by Roderick E. Burchard of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Canada); it is confirmed that the functional model of isolated cocaine alkaloid was assumed as a functional model of Coca in its entirety and that such a model for a long time had no alternatives.

A CRASHED UTOPIA

The ANDEAN-AMAZONIAN SOCIO-POLITICAL REALITY

MAZE of LAWS and OPINIONS about COCA

The CHRONOLOGY of COCA

The ELF of COCA at FOOTBALL WORLD CUP 1994

COCA from the ANDES to the HIMALAYAN 8000

COCA BUTON, a FORGOTTEN TASTE

“EVERYWHERE … COCA”, with COCA COLA

WINE MARIANI, a GIFT to the WORLD

The SCIENCE RESCUING COCA