Cultivation Of Cochineal In Oaxaca

Cultivation of Cochineal in Oaxaca
Zimmermann
Cempazuchil (marigold), mezquite, añil (indigo), curcuma, alazor and cochineal are some of the natural elements used for millennia to give color tolife.
In the ancient Mixtec kingdom there was a small animal called cochineal by the Spanish and nocheztli (blood of the nopal cactus) by the ancient Mexicans. It is now called Dactylopius coccusCosta, by scientists.
The ancient legend
Although little is known of its origins, there is a legend told about two gods who fought a bitter battle for the possession of a field of nopal cactus, and thatit was their blood, the result of their furious struggle, that splattered on the nopal leaves, giving them the power to pass on to posterity the “ink that circulated through their veins”.
While thisis just another Mixtec legend, Mesoamerican cultures knew cochineal very well and proof of this is huge vocabulary that refers to this insect. In Mixteco it was called indico and in Zapoteco bi-aa orbi-yaa. Also the 300 families that cultivated it could tell the difference between cultivated cochineal (the fine cochineal) and wild (the common), these were referred to as nicheztli andixquimiliuhqui in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs and after gold and silver it was the most valuable product of the New World and was cultivated exclusively in the Mixteca region of Oaxaca.
The scientificanalysis
The two types of cochineal correctly identified by the ancients have been the object of constant taxonomic modifications. One example of this is the case of the nomenclature of cultivatedcochineal, which in 1758 Linneo classified as Coccus cacti. But in 1899 Cockerell considered that name to be erroneous and he stated the following, “The insect described as Coccus cacti by Linneo andwhich he received from Daniel Rolander, is a monoflébido. The description by Linneo is sufficiently complete to demonstrate that his insect was not nopal cactus cochineal.” On the other hand, Burmeister...