Cochineal has been used in the Americas for dyeing from as early as 700 BCE. The vivid scarlet was treasured by the Aztecs and Incas. The Aztecs called it ‘Nocheztli’, from the Nahuatl “nochtli” (the opuntia / nopal cactus) and “eztli” (blood), directly translated it means “Cactus’ blood”.
The legend began in the Mixteca Region, land of the Cloud Men, in the eastern corridor of modern-day Oaxaca, Mexico. Before the advent of mankind, when gods inhabited the earth, two powerful gods fought in its mountainous terrain over the possession of an enormous crop of Nopal Cacti. During the fierce and tragic battle both gods where mortally wounded; their blood splattered across the nopal fields. Not wanting their bodies to remain on earth, their siblings descended from the sky and carried the battered bodies back to heaven on a bed of clouds.
