Rubber

the last 150 years or so. The Indians of South America appear to be the first people to have understood the properties of rubber, and the Aztecs of what is now Mexico were the first to be recorded using the substance; a wall painting dating back to the sixth century depicts a scene of a tributary offering of crude rubber. With the arrival of Columbus in the Americas and the resulting Spanish influx, further evidence starts to appear concerning the Native American use of rubber. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas describes a ritual game played with a rubber ball at the court of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II, and the Mayan and Toltec people are known to have taken part in similar activities. Rubber was also used to make raincoats, shoes, jars, torches and musical instruments, all of which must have been made from the indigenous Castilla elastica, as the Para plant now favoured for rubber cultivation does not grow in the Mexican region. The first description of latex (liquid rubber) extraction is made by Juan de Torquemada, who noted that if a receptacle was not at hand the Native Americans would place the latex on their bodies to allow it to solidify. However, no real interest in rubber was shown by any European until…