Geographic Distribution and Natural History

Achiote is an Amazonian shrub that grows mainly in hot climates on mountain slopes, between 100 and 1,800 meters above sea level; it is also found in tropical areas, from the Amazon region of Brazil to Central America. It is grown as a crop in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador—where it has been cultivated since pre-Hispanic times—although it has now spread to other regions of the world, such as Asia and Africa.   Bixa orellana was described by the Swedish botanist Carlos von Linnaeus in 1753, though its place of origin was unclear for a long time. However, it has recently been discovered that it was domesticated in the Brazilian Amazon from the species Bixa urucurana, which grows in the wild in the tropical jungles of South America.   The word “achiote” comes from the Nahuatl achiotl, a language spoken by the Aztecs, and means “seed of fire” or “seed that shines.” Its scientific name, Bixa orellana, comes from the surname of the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana, who discovered the Amazon River. Despite having been domesticated in northern South America and having been used by pre-Hispanic cultures such as the Moche and the Inca, its cultivation and use later spread to Mexico and Central America as a result of the Spanish Conquest.   In Caral, a pre-Inca archaeological site, located near the city of Casma in Peru, evidence of its use as a narcotic has been found. The inhabitants of this city, considered the oldest in the Americas, prepared a mixture that included achiote, lime and coca in around 3000 B.C.   The Incas used achiote leaves as a powerful natural medicine for the treatment and cure of diseases, long before the Spanish Conquest.   The first historical mention of achiote is found in the Historia general y natural de las Indias, by the chronicler of the Indies Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, the first part of which appears as a summary in 1535, and its complete version is published in Madrid in 1851. It is also mentioned by other chroniclers such as the missionaries Bernabé Cobo and Joseph Gumilla.   In 1659 it was brought to Europe by the French explorer Rochefort, who called it rocou, and it began to be used as a coloring in a wide variety of products from textiles to food.   Its use in the present day has been recorded among native Brazilian tribes, the Taínos in Puerto Rico, the Tsáchila of Ecuador and Amazonian tribes. The Pijaos of Colombia call it bija, in Venezuela it is called anotono, and in Paraguay and Bolivia it is known as urucú, a term from the Guaraní and Tupí languages that means red.