Caoutchouc and Brazil Nuts

Nearly five million people of mostly mixed Indian and European ancestry live in Para, Brazil's second largest state. The most important sources of income in this region include cattle raising and the growing of corn, rice, pepper and cassava, as well as the extraction of caoutchouc (rubber) and the gathering of Brazil nuts.

Caoutchouc is an Indian word that, like tomato, chocolate and cocoa, exists in many languages. It means "weeping tree" (Hevea brasiliensis), which is the tree from which caoutchouc (rubber) is obtained. The trees reach 20 meters in height and 75 centimeters in diameter, and can be tapped from the time they are six years old for as long as 30 to 35 years. The seringueiros (tappers) make a 10centimeter-deep hole in the trees in the morning, and then place a bucket underneath, into which the latex drips at a rate of about seven grams per day. The sap is then dried, formed into hard balls over an open fire, and sent to a factory in Beldm or Manaus for processing into rubber. The discovery of vulcanization by Charles Goodyear in 1842 led to a rubber boom in the entire Amazon basin. It also provided "rubber barons" in Iquito, Manaus and Belem with the financial resources to send their children to European boarding schools and their dirty laundry to be washed in France or England, as well as to buy themselves every imaginable kind of luxury item from abroad.