Faraway Asian seeds to embellish Amazonian bodies

With the process of colonial expansion, useful plants were transported to distant areas, introduced and adopted into distinct cultural systems. Spices, foods, medicines, and plants with multiple uses, such as those used for manufacturing body ornaments, were part of this circuit. Among them, the shiny Asian seeds of Coix lacryma-jobi found their way to the most diverse areas of the world, including the Amazonian rainforest. This article is an initial attempt to understand how this plant arrived in the Amazon and was incorporated by different Indigenous groups in distinct regions into their complex and particular systems of body ornaments manufacturing.