The Legend of Açaí

According to Amerindian lore, there was once a large indigenous tribe that found it hard to feed all its members, as food was scarce. Its Chief Itaki took a very cruel decision: all the newborn children would be killed in order to avoid any increase in its population.

But one day the Chief’s daughter Iassa gave birth to a baby daughter who also had to be killed. Desperate, Iassa wept every night. Shut away for several days in her hut, she begged the Tupã deity to show her father a way of helping feed his people, rather than killing more children.

One night when the moon was full, Iassa heard a baby’s cry. She crept to the door of her hut and saw her new-born daughter smiling at the foot of a huge palm tree and ran to hug her. But the child disappeared mysteriously. Heart-broken, Iassa wept the entire night until she died.
The next day, her body was found embracing the trunk of the palm tree, gazing up into its branches and smiling.

Her father Chief Itaki noted that the top of this palm tree was loaded with rich purple nuts. He ordered them to be gathered and crushed into a wine-red paste that he called Açaí, in honor of his daughter (Iassa written in reverse). The Chief was then able to feed his people and no longer needed to kill off their children.