Jiquitaia
Also known as Baniwa pepper, pimenta jiquitaia, pimenta Baniwa, giquitaia, jiquitaya
Dry spice blend
Quick answer
A powder of several kinds of chilli, dried, pounded and sieved together and usually mixed with a little salt, made by Indigenous women of the Rio Negro and other parts of Amazonia. The jiquitaia of the Baniwa of the Içana river is the documented one, and is eaten above all with fish.
In essentially every version: Dried chillies of several garden kinds, pounded, Salt.
2 distinct versions are set out below. None of them is presented as the correct one, because there isn’t one.
What goes in it
The defining core first, then the versions, with what each ingredient is there to do.
| Ingredient | Role | How essential |
|---|---|---|
| Chilli powder (ground)A survey of the gardens of 40 communities of the Içana basin listed 78 kinds of chilli, and between 80 and 90 per cent of them belong to the group of Capsicum chinense and Capsicum frutescens. Each woman’s mixture of kinds is her own. | heat | defining |
| SaltThe research behind the Baniwa book found salt at anything from none to 12 per cent of the powder. | salt | usual |
High, and by design. The book written with Baniwa researchers says there is no single recipe: the kinds of chilli grown, the share of each in the mixture, the way they are dried and whether salt or herbs are added give powders of different colours, textures and tastes, and each woman’s blend is her own. Its authors counted seven basic ways of preparing it. Drying in the sun gives one colour and drying over the oven a darker one. Salt runs from none to about an eighth.
The seven ways are counted in the book and not described one by one.
The versions
Each attributed, with how firm its proportions are stated plainly.
Household jiquitaia of Baniwa women
Household traditionAs described in the book published by the Baniwa organisations OIBI and FOIRN with the Instituto Socioambiental, from research with communities of the Içana basin between 2007 and 2009 · no amounts given · medium confidence
Ripe chillies of several kinds, picked a few at a time, dried in the sun in the open space of the community or on a small platform above the manioc oven, then pounded in a wooden mortar. A few blows break the skins and leave the seeds whole, and the seeds are sieved out through a basketry sieve. Salt may be added or not. Most of what a woman makes is eaten by her own family and community.
Made with: Dried chillies of several kinds, pounded and sieved of their seeds, Salt. The source gives no amounts, so none are shown.
The book says salt was once scarce on the Rio Negro and was made by burning a plant of the river rapids, called caruru, to ash; it calls that use very rare today.
Pimenta Baniwa, the jiquitaia the Baniwa organisations sell
Typical commercialThe standard the Baniwa pepper initiative of OIBI, FOIRN and the Instituto Socioambiental set for the powder it markets, as its own book states it · proportions documented · medium confidence
The same powder made for sale through a network of community pepper houses, where gas or solar drying rooms dry the fruit in a day and keep off dust and animals. Salt is fixed at a tenth by mass, and the salt used is a surface-crystallised salt from Maras in Peru.
| Ingredient | Parts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Dried chillies of several kinds, pounded and sieved of their seeds | 9 | 90% |
| Salt (fleur de sel from Maras, Peru) | 1 | 10% |
One community enterprise’s standard, stated by the enterprise. The mixture of chilli kinds is still each producer’s own. A 2024 study says the powder has been sold in Brazil and abroad since 2013.
Using it
In the Baniwa communities it goes with fish, the main source of protein there, and the book estimates that a family uses about seven litres of it a year. The book’s list of chilli kinds marks several as good for quinhampira, which it glosses as a regional fish sauce, as well as for jiquitaia. Since a first tasting for chefs in São Paulo in 2011, restaurants in Brazil have used the marketed powder as a finishing chilli.
Very hot and strongly aromatic. The book puts this down to the chillies: most of the kinds the women grow belong to the group of Capsicum chinense and Capsicum frutescens, which holds the hottest and most scented chillies known. Colour, texture and taste differ from one maker to the next. No tasting panel was found.
The description is the producers’ own. The book also prints a chef’s praise of the powder, which is not repeated here.
High. The book calls the powder highly spiced; no measurement of its pungency was read.
- Fish
- Manioc bread (beiju)
Fish is what the book says it is strongly associated with in the communities. The manioc bread is what it is photographed on. Restaurant uses the book lists are left out.
Storage
Good for: not established
Cool, dark, dry and closed, as for any ground chilli.
Allergens and safety
Not among the substances that must be declared as allergens under EU Regulation 1169/2011 Annex II or under the United States major food allergen rules. That is a statement about labelling law and not about whether allergy occurs: allergic reactions to spices are documented in the clinical literature and are simply not a labelling category. Where a ground spice presents an allergen risk it is usually through adulteration or shared processing equipment rather than through the plant itself.
Culture and origin
Made by Baniwa women in the communities of the Içana and Ayari rivers, in the upper Rio Negro, where Brazil meets Colombia and Venezuela, from the chillies of their own forest plots and kitchen gardens. The book the Baniwa organisations published says other peoples of the Rio Negro and of Amazonia make and use it too, and a review from Roraima records it made in Indigenous villages there by women known as pimenteiras. The word is Tupi, not Baniwa.
No source read dates the preparation, and none is cited for where it began.
The Baniwa of the Içana and Ayari rivers, upper Rio Negro
Among the Baniwa of the upper Rio Negro (Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela). Shared by the Baniwa and other peoples of the Rio Negro and of Amazonia.
Chilli is grown, dried and pounded by women. After manioc it is among the commonest crops of the forest plots and kitchen gardens of the Içana, and each woman picks a little every day, carrying it home wrapped in leaves. The book written with Baniwa researchers quotes the Baniwa as saying that pepper is at the heart of their diet, their upbringing and the passing on of their knowledge. Pounding and sieving are done with the back to the wind, because the dust burns skin, eyes and throat.
An account published by the Baniwa organisations themselves, from research in about 27 communities.
Indigenous villages of Roraima, northern Brazil
A review written at the state university of Roraima says jiquitaia is made in the Indigenous villages of that state by women known as pimenteiras, who grow the chillies, prepare the powder and distribute it. It found research on jiquitaia in Roraima to be rare.
A literature review reporting an earlier study; it names no people or village.