Cassina - The Black Drink Ceremony

Yaupon Holly

Ever wonder how prehistoric man survived without coffee?  Millions of Americans depend on a morning cup of coffee to jump-start their day.  Florida’s own Timucua people had something just as good - the Black Drink.  It came from a plant called Yaupon Holly, in Latin - Ilex vomitoria.  How could a plant with a name like that rival modern coffee?

            Yaupon holly is one of the few plants native to North America that contains the all important ingredient:  caffeine.  This chemical is concentrated in the leaves when they are first growing in the spring.  The Timucua collected these leaves and roasted them (as we roast coffee beans today) to increase the caffeine’s solubility in hot water.  Yaupon usually grows in coastal areas, so local Timucua probably traded the leaves inland for valuables including chert (raw material for projectile points) and clay (raw material for pottery).  

            Yaupon provided more than just trade value.  Due to its chemical properties, it served an important cultural role.   Caffeine is a diuretic; it helps you sweat.   In the Timucua belief structure, this sweating allowed the drinker to remove physical and spiritual impurities from his system.  Only adult men could partake of the black drink.  These men sipped the black drink in morning gatherings while they discussed things of importance.

           But there were other uses of the black drink that stemmed from its emetic properties.  If you drink several cups of any hot liquid quickly, especially a caffeinated hot liquid, you may get sick.  The Timucua used this as an extreme form of purification.  If the men were going on a very important hunt or to battle, they needed a lot of luck.   Finding luck required them to be ritually pure.  So the men chugged the black drink and either vomited profusely or struggled to hold it down.  After that, they were so wired from the caffeine that they often succeeded in the hunt or battle.  Many modern sources suggest that other plants were added to the cassina to induce vomiting.  Surely the French and Spanish would not realize which plants were being used.  They simply wrote what the native people told them.  Some of these historical sources indicate that vomiting was considered a sign of weakness or impurity, while others portray emesis (vomiting) as an extreme form of purification, and therefore desirable.  In either case, Yaupon served a valuable cultural role for Native Americans throughout the southeast.  Click here to see a French engraving of a Timucua Indian Black Drink Ceremony.    

Provided by the Pelotes Island Nature Preserve
http://pelotes.jea.com