Past Glory and Present Status of Cochineal

Abstract

A small insect known as cochineal (from the Spanish word cochinilla), has played a significant role in New World cultural history. The bug, which parasitizes cacti, is a source of red dye that still has some uses. A recent bibliographical tour deforce by R. A. Donkin documents the saga of this valuable colorant from prehistoric to modern times.' In sixteenth-century Mexico, Europeans found larger-than-average cochineal carefully tended in plantations of Nopalea and Opuntia cactus, or nopaleries. These bugs (granafina) yielded a high-quality dye, suggesting that selective breeding occurred, but the same cochineal species, Dactylopius coccus, has also been collected from the wild (grana silvestre) in Central and South America. Donkin favors diffusion of the insect by man from western South America to Mexico as the most plausible explanation for the bug's pre-Columbian presence in these two widely separated areas. Additional archaeological evidence and further taxonomic fieldwork, however, are required to establish beyond doubt which cochineal species live on which species of cactus before questions of origin and dispersal can be resolved. Analyses of dyed fragments of fabric found in prehistoric graves suggest the earliest date by which cochineal was raised or at least known in Peru. In some intriguing detective work, Max Saltzman used solution spectrophotometry to ascertain that cochineal was the red colorant in some textiles dated about A.D. 300 and found on the south