Cochineal

Cochineal is one of the oldest pigments used in the Americas, dating back to as early as the second century BC.

Its red was symbolic of the gods, sun and blood, and employed in rituals of the Maya and Aztec peoples who traded it throughout Central and South America. Indigenous people in the Mexican regions of Puebla, Tlaxcala and Oaxaca had systems for breeding and engineering cochineal insects for ideal traits to produce red paint pigments for coloring manuscripts and murals, and to dye cloth and feathers. Following the Spanish invasion, it was traded around the world, and its production became an industry that relied entirely on the expertise and labor of Indigenous Mexicans, though they were never acknowledged for it.