Yerba Mate' in the Legends of the Guarani Indians
There is an old Guarani Indian legend that relates the origins of the Guarani in the Forests of Paraguay. According to the legend, the ancestors of the Guarani at one time in the distant past crossed a great and spacious ocean from a far land to settle in the Americas. They found the land both wonderful yet full of dangers; through diligence and effort they subdued the land and inaugurated a new civilization. The Guarani tribes worked the land and became excellent craftsmen. They looked forward to the coming of a tall, fair-skinned, blue eyed, bearded God (Pa' i Shume) who, according to legend, descended from the skies and expressed his pleasure with the Guarani. He brought religious knowledge and imparted to them certain agricultural practices to be of benefit during times of drought and pestilence as well as on a day-to-day basis. Significantly, He unlocked the secrets of health and medicine and revealed the healing qualities of native plants. One of the most important of these secrets was how to harvest and prepare the leaves of the yerbamate' tree. The mate' beverage was meant to ensure health, vitality and longevity.
Mate' became the most common ingredient in household cures of the Guarani, and remains so to this day. In current practice in modern Argentina and Paraguay, mate' tea is made from the leaves steeped in hot water. Actually, a large quantity of ground leaf is first soaked in cold water, then the hot water is added, over and over again, until all the good stuff has been extracted. In between each addition of hot water the tea is ingested through a special wood or metal straw, called a bombilla, (see page 10) that filters out the leafy material. It is also used as a cold beverage. Certain rituals of mate' use in South America are extremely unsanitary from a hygienic perspective. Often, the bombilla is passed from one individual to the next around a circle. This, and associated ritualistic practices, represent aberrations of the yerbamate' tradition that crept in over the centuries.
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