COOK AND cook: THE MAHO OR MAHAGUA 169 



Wijk also gives evonove as a Gaboon nanio, the maho being re- 

 ported from a few localities in West Africa. Three distinct 

 names are recorded by Schumann and Lauterbach in German 

 New Guinea, daiia, marau, and papalan, and another form in the 

 Solomon Islands, dakatako. 



A wide-spread Asiatic name is belli pata or belli patta, which 

 has been reported from Singapore, Ceylon, and Bombay. Sev- 

 eral other oriental names, banid barid, barn, beligobel, bola, 

 bourao, chelwa, lo, surihagas, suringas, ihengben, and thingban, 

 are listed in Watt's Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, 

 or in Van Wijk's Dictionary of Plant Names. Some of these names 

 probably were borrowed from other fiber-producing species of 

 Hibiscus, severa^ of which are natives of India. The name 

 pariti adopted by Adanson from Rheede's Flora Malabarica, 

 published in 1686, was also used in the native language to form 

 compound names of several species of Hibiscus and Gossypium. 



Alany other maho names exist, no douJDt, in the languages of 

 Borneo, New Guinea, and other parts of the East Indies, as well 

 as in Tropical America, but these are not Hkely to alter the gen- 

 eral contrast between the very wide distribution of the words 

 that connect with maho or mahagua and the very local 

 distribution of the others. 



SUMMARY 



The maho, mahagua, or linden hibiscus {Pariti tiliaceum) is 

 one of the economic plants to be taken into account in studying 

 the problem of contacts between the inhabitants oi tropical 

 America and the Pacific islands, in prehistoric times. Though 

 considered a native of America, the maho appears to have been 

 distributed over the islands and shores of the Pacific and Indian 

 oceans before the arrival of Europeans. 



Readiness of propagation and of transportation by cuttings 

 renders this plant well adapted for culti\'ation and dissemina- 

 tion by primitive peoples. Although human assistance in trans- 

 portation does not appear to be so definitely re(iuired with the 

 maho as with the sweet potato and other plants that are grown 

 from only cuttings, the names of the maho afford almost as 



