While new to Westem World, the indigenous
people of the Ecuadorian Amazon have known about pitahaya for centuries. The
Shuar tribe of community Tawasap shared a story of the origin of pitahaya.

In the Amazonia lived a gorgeous woman called lkiamanch. She was so beautiful
that made all tine men in the area too shy to ask her out, One day she became
tired of being lonely, so she decided to become a plant. An exotic and medicinal
plant. Semi seated, she opened her arms and tumed into a cactus plant with
yellow flowers like the sun to show her beauty, and with fruit sweet as honey to
heal the human body of different diseases. lkiamanch became a tree climber to
live from the ground to the heights, she has fine thoms to defend against all the
danger and threat of the jungle. Every night she opens her flowers to make every-
one fall in love with her.

The men did not dare to conquer her, so she decided to live as a plant, the beau-
tiful Ikiamanch or Pitahaya, the golden fruit. She was a beautiful woman and now
she is a beautiful exotic fruit.

Tzama Tigre Tzamarenda – Shuar de Palora Ecuador.