COOK AND cook: THE MAHO OR MAHAGUA 157 



The chief center of popularity for majagua as a plant name 

 is in the West Indies. Oviedo, who appears to have written the 

 first account of the plant in Santo Domingo, early in the six- 

 teenth centur}^, called it demmahagua and it is still called dema- 

 jagua and emahagua in Porto Rico. In de la Maza's dictionary 

 of native Cuban plant names the word majagua or its diminu- 

 tive vmjaguUla, appears in nearly a score of Spanish combina- 

 tions, viajagna azul, majagua blanca, majagua de casta, majagua 

 hembra, etc., in application to several genera of Malvaceae and 

 Tiliaceae, which have fibrous barks, including Hibiscus, Thes- 

 pesia, Pavonia, Helicteres; and Guazuma. The Porto Rican 

 name of Thespesia is maga or magar, while. 7naya and maguey 

 are the native West Indian names of Bromelia and Agave, two 

 other important groups of fiber plants. Several species of Ficus, 

 also with fibrous barks, are called gagiley, jagiley, or jagUeicillo. 

 In Porto Rico yagua is the name of the leathery, fibrous leaf- 

 bases of the royal palm. 



The list of Mexican plant names by Ramirez and Alcocer 

 includes majagua as the name of Hibiscus tiliaceus and Hampea 

 integerrima, and also mahahiia, masahua, and majagililla, as 

 names of the maho or of Helicteres, Heliocarpus, and Thespesia. 



Maho names collected by Pittier from seven of the native 

 languages of Costa Rica apparently have no relation to the 

 West Indian and South American series of maho words, as may 

 be seen from the following list: Bribri, stsd; Brunka, kro-kua, or 

 krok-ua; Terraba, kip-kuo and tro-kro; Dorasque Gualaca, kis; 

 Dorasque Changuina, i-lak; Cuna, Chagua tiipii; Guaymi, ko 

 and kud-td. Two more aberrant names, choucoron and guimauve, 

 are listed in Van Wijk's Dictionary of Plant Names, probably 

 from Guiana. 



OTHER PLANTS CALLED MAHOE IN AMERICA 



Among the plants that share the name, or that have been 

 confused locally with the maho elsewhere in the West Indies are 

 Thespesia populnea, Hibiscus clypeatus, and Stercidia caribaea. 

 In French Guiana and Brazil the names mahoe cochon, mahaguo 



