North America (nawait): The Tohono O'odham, also known as the Papago, live in southern Arizona and northern Sonora. In late summer they hold a rain ceremony, important to the desert people, for which they harvest the fruit of the saguaro cactus and ferment it into a wine called nawait, the drinking of which will bring the rains.

They take long poles made from the skeletons of dead saguaros to knock down the fruits which they split open by hand. They must be careful not to allow the fruit to hit the ground and split open, and to harvest the fruit before it opens on the cactus. A saguaro fruit has red pulp inside and thousands of tiny black seeds. The pulp is supposed to taste sort of like a fig with a slight strawberry flavor. The fruit is sorted for quality and cleaned, then soaked in water for several hours in tightly woven baskets . Then they mash the fruit with the water with their hands before boiling it for up to two hours. They then pour it into earthenware pots called ollas, which they store in a dark cool place to distill for 3-7 days. The short fermentation time produced a sweet wine - they do/did not like a dry wine.

~ Akatena Sequoyah

South America (yerba mate): Yerba mate is a non-alcoholic drink of the Guarani Indians of the subtropical Amazonian region of South America.

In their mythology, they travelled across a sea and settled in. A god named Pa' i Shume appeared to teach them many things about this new land, including how to prepare and use yerba mate.

The native name for the tree is caá-mini, and it is called chimarrão in Brazil, and yerba mate in other countries where it is found (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. The Latin name is Ilex paraguariensis, and it is a member of the holly family.

Yerba mate leaves are steeped in hot water, after being soaked in cold. It makes a rich, nutritious brew for which there are medicinal claims, and is served either hot or cold. The beverage does contain caffeine.

~ Senex Caecilius & MC