Yerba Mate Yesterday and Today 

The Story of Yerba Mate

The Herb Quarterly, Summer 1999

When the adventurer Sebastian Gaboto sailed up the Paran� river in 1526, he believed that at the fountainhead of its brutal waters he would find Eldorado, the fabled land of silver and gold that drove the ambitions of early European explorers. Gaboto was certain the inexhaustible cache of precious metals would transform all of the lands down river (in the area now occupied by Paraguay) into the richest and most powerful region in South America.

He was wrong. But in the area Gaboto pioneered, Mother Nature hid a treasure, not aureate, but green in color, which would both reward those lands with commerce and burden them with a history of human tragedy no less appalling than that caused elsewhere by the discovery of gold. The verdant gift concealed in her bosom was a stout evergreen of the holly family known to the aborigines as Caa, but eventually christened by the Spaniards: yerba mat� (Ilex Paraguariensis).

The Spaniards were disillusioned by their failure to find precious metals, and exhausted from the travails of jungle survival. A small break-off group decided to settle along the Paran� River, in an area where they found abundant food and friendly reception among the Guaran� Indians. These hospitable Native Americans were well-built, vigorous, and healthy. They seemed gifted with good character and abounding joy. Naturally the Spaniards wanted to know why. The secret, they were told, was to drink an infusion of dried leaves from the Caa bush, a gift from the spirit Tup�.

Considering its mythical origin and seemingly magical properties, the early Jesuits� mistrust of this powerful Guaran� herb was understandable. They voiced opposition to its use, deeming it a �demonic� pagan beverage given to the �tribal witches� by Tup� � none other than Lucifer himself. They forbade its consumption in their territories and decreed the worst of all punishments for those who disobeyed, excommunication.

This had a disastrous effect, because the use of mat� had become so widespread that the church found itself confronting the possibility of losing almost all the faithful. In spite of the harsh decree, people continued sipping their favorite beverage. To make matters worse, a Dominican priest branded the herb an aphrodisiac. Contrary to his intentions, this caused the use of mat� to spread like Viagra!

This explosion in popularity marked, unfortunately, the beginning of a sad chapter in mat�s history. As consumption spread throughout South America, a mat� gold-fever resulted in the virtual enslavement of thousands of Guaran� Indians, exploited by Spanish encomenderos (contractors) in the most brutal fashion. The Guaran� were forced to open paths through the rainforest with machete blows from the Paraguayan capital of Asunci�n to the heart of the mat� groves in Guair� Maraz�n, Ira�, and Alto Uruguay. These paths were watered by the sweat and blood of thousands of aborigines, and paved with their bones. In the annals of New World exploitation no single industry brutalized its labor force more than those first encomenderos of yerba mat�.

For their part, the Jesuits by now had realized the failure of their attempts to discourage mat� , and began to embrace it instead. They sanitized its pagan origin by substituting Santo Tom� (Saint Thomas) for Tup� in the myth of its inception, and became so closely associated with the drink that many still know the plant as yerba missionera, the missionary herb. Happily, their change of heart helped attenuate, somewhat, the plight of the Guaran�.

Excerpted from The Herb Quarterly, Summer 1999

Yerba Mate Today

Today yerba mate is an institution in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and parts of Brazil. South Americans drink it for the taste and the great way it makes them feel. It's what everyone is drinking at the corner caf�; it's what you drink when you visit old friends or welcome new ones. And day by day yerba mat� is gaining popularity outside of South America where it has been marketed primarily as a health food. More and more people are also discovering it as a great stimulant and effective alternative to coffee.