88 cook: quichua names of sweet potatoes 



in a place not recently cultivated. At Santa Ana three distinct 

 kinds, to judge from the foliage, were found as common weeds in 

 cultivated land. But to certify that any plant is a genuine native 

 species seems out of the question in a region where all of the land 

 has probably been cleared many times and cultivated inter- 

 mittently for centuries. On the other hand, there is no reason 

 to deny that the sweet potato may have been domesticated in 

 the Peruvian region, as many other plants appear to have been. 



The words apichu and cumara have been recorded before, 

 but without indications of their concurrent use and distinct 

 applications among the Quichuas. Markham's Quichua Vo- 

 cabulary gives apichu as the name of the sweet potato, but over- 

 looks cumara altogether. Reference might also be made to 

 Holguin's Arte y Diccionario without finding cumara, since the 

 word does not appear in its alphabetic position, but under apichu 

 we find: "Apichu, cumar, nom. Camote." Martius's Ethno- 

 graphic has neither apichu nor cumara, but gives camote as the 

 Quichua name, with a derivation from the Mexican camotli. 

 Cobo, whose Historia was written in Peru less than seventy years 

 after the conquest (though not published till 1890), recorded 

 apichu as the Quichua name, tutuca as the Aymara name, and 

 camote as the name used by the Spaniards of Peru, borrowed from 

 the language of Mexico. Cobo appears to have visited the in- 

 terior of Bolivia, but not the interior of Peru. 



No reason is apparent for questioning the status of apichu 

 and cumara as genuine Quichua words. Etymologies would 

 be easy to invent. For apichu such a combination as api (maize 

 pudding) and pichu (flesh) or pichi (root) would be appropriate, 

 while cumara might be related to ccumu or kumu, meaning 

 crooked or hunch-backed. Other Quichua names analogous to 

 cumar or cumara are pallor (Phasaeolus), quinuar (Buddleia), 

 quisuar (Polylepis), ancara (gourd), sara (Zea), tara (Caesalpinia 

 tinctoria), and achira (Canna). 



The sweet potato was not known to Europeans before the 

 discovery of America. The first name that the Spaniards 

 learned and carried back to Spain was batata, the original of our 

 word potato, but the Mexican name camote is now more widely 



