A CHRONICLE OF THE TRIBE OF CORN 



229 



said in their favor. The word maize (mays) itself is strictly Ameri- 

 can, but this name has been in use only since adopted by Matthiole in 

 1570. In modern European languages the common name has been one 

 purporting to show eastern origin, in English Indian corn, in French 

 blS de Turquie or Turkish wheat. Since maize is not wheat, it might 

 almost be concluded it was not Turkish. The trouble was. one could 

 not prove it. As a matter of fact, such names only show the tendency 

 of a people simply to indicate the foreign origin of an introduced art- 

 icle, as when the French gave the name coq d'Inde or Indian cock to the 

 American turkey. According to De Candolle maize was called Roman 

 corn in Lorraine and Yosges, Sicilian corn in Tuscany, Indian corn in 

 Sicily and Spanish corn in the Pyrenees. The Turks call it Egyptian 

 corn and the Egyptians, Syrian dourra, which prove it to be neither 

 Egyptian nor Syrian. 



It has been generally agreed by historians that there was no Hebrew 

 or Sanskrit word for maize and that there was no Egyptian representa- 

 tion of the plant. It is true, Rifaud found an ear of maize in a tomb at 

 Thebes, but this was the work of a modern impostor, for if maize had 

 been a crop of ancient Egypt, pictures of it would have been as plentiful 

 as they are of other Egyptian plants. The plant certainly was not 

 known in Europe in early times, but the question ever arose whether or 

 not it could have been introduced from the East during the Middle 

 Ages. Bonafous, who was the foremost writer on the subject in the 

 early nineteenth century, took this view and was responsible for long- 

 continued doubt on the subject. The principal evidence on the ques- 

 tion was that obtained from a charter drawn up between two crusaders 

 in 1204, according to which seeds thought to be maize and brought 

 from Anatolia were presented to the town of Incisa. Historians of the 

 crusades made much of this charter, although botanists thought from 



Fig. 4. A Giant Flour Corn from Peru compared with a Dwarf Pop Corn 



from the United States. 



