The tucum palm and its thread
Tucum is a palm native to the Amazon, and researchers studying communities such as Céu do Juruá have documented how its leaves are worked into a strong, biodegradable thread through techniques passed down across generations. The process, and the many uses found for the resulting cord, are treated in that research as a form of traditional ecological knowledge — evidence of a way of living with the forest that predates, and does not depend on, industrial materials.
That scholarship frames tucum-thread craft as part of a wider conversation in Brazil about protecting traditional and indigenous knowledge as cultural heritage, alongside — and sometimes in tension with — newer legal categories built around biodiversity and intellectual property.
The hymn
Within Santo Daime's hinário tradition, "Linha do Tucum" is also the name of a specific hymn set apart from the rest: convention holds that it is sung only once during a given work. The name links the hymn to the same tucum palm long valued in Amazonian material culture, though the hymn and the craft tradition are distinct things that happen to share a name.