Frank Vandemaele, retired veterinary expert, who worked for the United Nations in many developing countries in the world, writes in his third book “Estos Gringos son locos!” (The foreigners are crazy!) about the local brew in Ecuador in the 1950’s.
“… In the middle of the village, squat down in a small circle around an earthen jug, some old toothless women are putting corn-grain in their mouth. They look very serious and resigned with a cattle-like expression on their face. After chewing for a long time, they spit the disgusting porridge in the jug. Later water is added, and one leaves this ‘soup’ to ferment for a few days. This is how Tsjetsja is brewed, the local beer, a treat for the workers coming back from their work of the fields in the mountains.”
In a footnote the writer explains that Tsjetsja is in fact the daily beverage for everybody, and that the people of the Andes need the alcohol to kill the germs in the water, that is undrinkable. The chewing converts the starches into sugars, and wild yeast ferments the sugars into alcohol. Later in his book, he tells about the ever recurring joke of how new arriving foreigners are treated with a glass or cup of Tsjetsja, asked how they like this beer (good!), and then are showed how it is made.
The Sun Virgins in the INCA Culture.

In America prior to Christopher Columbus, corn was the main cereal, the basis of all human food. Beer, made from Corn, was not only the common beverage but was also used as a ritual offering to the Sun, their God. In the palace at lake Titicaca in Peru, virgins were responsible for part of the beer brewing process. They were entrusted with the task of chewing the corn before it was fermented. The enzymes from the saliva of these young women created the sugars. Today, in the Amazon, it is still the women that brew the beer. The girls at the Inca temple were called the “Sun Virgins”
These girls were in fact the slaves of the priests. When the priest didn’t like the girl anymore, or the beer she brewed, he could claim that her saliva was no longer strong enough, or that she had lost her virginity. Of course, he was in the perfect position to know that. The result was a very cruel death for the girl, when she was slaughtered and offered to the God, to whom the priests also offered beer at the same time. The priests liked beer and young women, and they believed that God could be pleased with the same.

Newsletter May, 2001