Ancient seeds

Cumaru trees are large trees of primary forest and their nuts (also called Tonka beans) are harvested by the Kayapo from the forest floor during the summer dry season when cumaru fruits. Finding cumaru trees relies on traditional knowledge. Usually the hunters who first smell the loose bark of the seeds. The fragrance tells them that harvest time is near, so they inform the community. As with the Brazil nut, entire families camp for many days in the forest to collect cumaru seeds from the ground where they have fallen. Cumaru nuts are taken back to the village where people break them open with a hammer to extract the fragrant bean-like seed from its hard nut casing.

The seeds are laid out to dry under the sun and then sold for fabrication of cosmetics by the UK company Lush: the main buyer of Kayapo cumaru. Dried cumaru seeds are much lighter and easier to transport than the tons of unshelled Brazil nuts.

Cumaru generates important income during the dry season especially for the most remote communities where river transportation is difficult and production must be taken out by air at great expense.