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It's the origin of our people" explained Obadias Batista Garcia, president of the General Council of the Sateré-Mawé Tribe (CGSTM). The Sateré-Mawé had a monopoly on the production of guaraná (or waraná, in their language) up until the late 19th Century, but to talk of their connection to it in purely commercial terms is to entirely miss the political, moral, cultural and spiritual significance it has. By the early 19th Century, records describe an intense commerce of the Amazonian fruit as far and wide as Bolivia, Argentina and even Europe, where it was "greatly appreciated" by the men of science at the International Exhibition in London in 1862. Portuguese colonisers in the 18th Century also described guaraná as the Sateré-Mawé's "most precious asset" and of its use "as currency for payments". The year was 1669, and a Jesuit priest, João Felipe Betendorf, on one of the many missions sent by the Portuguese crown to open up the Amazon and extract its riches, wrote of a "little fruit, which dry and crush, forming balls which they value as the whites value gold". It was only 352 years ago, however, that the earliest written record of guaraná appeared, when the Sateré-Mawé first came into contact with Europeans.
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It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac. Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance.