MONTERREY, NL—In the northwestern region of Mexico–Baja California, Sinaloa, Sonora–it was once common to eat sea turtles called caguamas (also spelt cahuamas.) I have met several older men in Mexico who remember tasting the meat of the turtle, which is now illegal. Their consensus–it was quite delicious. While some in the region still clandestinely hunt the hapless sea turtles, they risk up to nine years in prison under Article 420 of Mexico’s Federal Penal Code. So, in modern times, instead of eating caguamas, Mexicans drink them.
Ha! Yes, nearly every Mexican drinks caguamas. Only these caguamas aren’t turtles–they’re large, “family-size” bottles of beer that contain just under 1 liter of lager (940 ml.) The term, which emerged in the 1960s as a marketing scheme by Cervecería Cuauhtémoc for a new, large format bottle of their brand Carta Blanca, has overtaken Mexico. If you drink beer in the country today, it will only take you a couple of bottles before you encounter the term.
At this point, popularity and common use have stretched the term outside of its original shape. Commercially, large brewers, both domestic and foreign, sell caguamas, caguamones, and caguamitas. These innovations play on the linguistics of diminutives and augmentatives to blow the term’s original size-oriented definition out of the water. Socially, the Mexican has absorbed the caguama deep into the vernacular, using it as a verb (caguamear, to drink beer from caguamas) and occasionally referring to the bottles as caguasakis (a combination of caguama with Kawasaki.)
The vast popularity of these beers, which present both an economical and social way of drinking, is understandable. But you can’t help but notice that the name seems to resonate more deeply than just some marketing stunt. Does it just sound good? Yes, many Mexicans adore caguamas without knowing about the turtle connection. But maybe there is something deeper too.
Take a look at this 1859 oil painting by Édouard Pingret. It is titled “Aguador o Tortuga,” which could translate as “Water Hauler or Turtle.” The forehead strap method of portering pictured here was common to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica where no pack animals or “beasts of burden” existed. To support large scale civilization, Mesoamericans used their backs and a variety of straps and containers to help them. The human carried large quantities of goods, including merchandise, firewood, and water, long distances, sometimes crossing mountains into other regions. Many of these containers, as César Macazaga Ordoño wrote in Envases y Embalajes preshispanicos were made from plant and animal matter, with the exception of common ceramics.
So early Mesoamericans had to carry things on their backs. While merchandise would be portered in a huacal, a sort of rectangular wooden cage, water was schlepped in rotund gourds. The Frenchman’s painting clearly draws a connection between the traditional way of carrying water and the animal, so maybe that connection already existed in Mexican culture. Finally, let us not forget that the word caguama has the word for water, agua, in it: caguama
On the opposite side of the country, in the southeast, the natives of Tabasco also used to eat caguamas. For the peoples of this region, the creature carries major cultural weight. Within the Mayan sphere of influence, the sea turtle is the crux of the ancient story of creation. The great turtle arose from the primordial nothing of the ocean and then, on its back, there was the existence of land. While not liquid, the turtle is always carrying something.
So turtles have shells that they seemingly carry, but caguama has also touched upon connotations of size. The term caguama can refer to a variety of marine turtles depending on place (remember it was in use in both Baja and the Gulf of Mexico,) but the impressiveness of these creatures is important.
The 1996 edition of Diccionario del español usual en México defines caguama as “a marine turtle of distinct species that is characterized by its great size, which can measure up to 2 meters in length.” Commonly, the caguama is equated with the scientific name Caretta caretta, which carries the common English name of loggerhead.
Along the same aquatic and size based usage, The Diccionario enciclopédico hispano-americano de literatura, ciencias y artes defines caguama as “a very small boat similar to a dingy.” Small for a boat, but large for a turtle, this usage is decidedly apt and paints a poetic picture of the loggerhead swimming on the ocean’s surface.
Finally, there is evidence that caguama can be used to refer to large humans. In the 2016 article, “Desglose de la obesidad y delgadez en adolescentes,” the authors give a variety of terms that are used to describe overweight or obese children in Mexican culture. A body type they describe as “a spherical and voluminous body” can, among other terms, be called caguama.
So, when, in the 60s and 70s, Cervecería Cuauhtémoc in Monterrey, which had deep ties with local glass factory Vidriera Monterrey, began releasing a variety of new bottles, the caguama was included. (Carmen del Valle, Eulalia Pena Torres) The original caguamas carried 32 ounces or 943 milliliters of Carta Blanca beer. The large size was definitely a key factor in choosing the name.
The caguama is now a beloved beer institution in Mexico. It is common to invite a friend to share little glasses of beer poured from these large bottles. Brewers love selling in this format because the consumer is so enamored with it.
While the original use of the term for beer bottles can be credited to a specific brewery, the logic behind the name seems to have deeper roots in Mexican culture and history. That is, we know why we call the bottle a caguama–because Cervecería Cuauhtémoc called it that–but why did they choose the name.
It seems likely that caguama was a suitable name for two reasons. Firstly, because it was a bottle, a container, a vessel, something that carried something. The turtle, and its shell, have long been associated with porterage. Secondly, because it was large. Thanks to the enormous size of the loggerhead, the term has been used to describe a variety of things based on their size. In this way, we get the beloved caguama. It doesn’t hurt that the name is fun to say.
It is interesting to note that in the Pacific north of Mexico, where caguamas were once eaten as a delicacy, the large beer bottles don’t carry the same name. Instead, they call these bottles ballenas, or whales. This name, it seems, is strictly about size.
Finally, here is a Mexican Folk Song from Baja California published in El Que Come Y Canta about eating loggerheads:
La Cahuama (La Paz, Baja California, 1933)
Nostotras somos las cahuamas
Que ustedes van a saborear;
Tenemos pecho y caparacho,
Y no se nos podra negar.
Si acaso ustedes lo dudaren,
Los invitamos a pasar,
Y pueden si, muy bien, tentarnos,
Pero no mas sin abusar.
Estribillo
Aqui esta, aqui esta,
La cahuama haciendo “cua.”
Translated:
We are the loggerheads,
That you all are going to taste,
We have a shell and a breast
And we cannot be denied.
If, by chance, you all would doubt it,
We invite you to come by,
And yes, you can well tempt us
But no more with abuse.
Chorus:
Here it is, here it is
The loggerhead doing the “cua.”
Desentis Otalora, Aline, compiler and introduction. El Que Come Y Canta…Cancionero Gastronómico de México, Tomo Uno. Conaculta, CDMX, 1999.
Diccionario enciclopédico hispano-americano de literatura, ciencias y artes. Tomo 4.
Lara, Luis Fernando, director. Diccionario del español usual en México. Edición digital basada en la edición de México, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Lingüísticos y Literarios, 1996.
Muñoz Corona, Ana Lilia, and Lizbeth Castro Amaro. “Desglose de La Obesidad y Delgadez En Adolescentes (primera Parte).” Psic-Obesidad, vol. 6, no. 21, 2016, https://doi.org/10.22201/fesz.20075502e.2016.6.21.80837.
Torres Torres, Felipe Del Valle, Maria del Carmen Pena Torres, Eulalia, El Reordenamiento Agrícola en los Países Pobres. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, UNAM, 1996.
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