136 Harihberger. — Maize ; 



Du Pratz 1 states (page 226) that maize is the natural product 

 of this country. " Louisiana produces several kinds of maiz, 

 namely, flour maiz, which is white, with a flat and shriveled 

 surface, and is the softest of all kinds ; homony corn, which 

 is round, hard and shining — of this there are four sorts, the 

 white, the yellow, the red and the blue ; the maiz of these 

 two last colors is more common in the highlands than in 

 lower Louisiana. For the grinding of their corn they use 

 large wooden mortars, formed by hollowing the trunks of 

 trees with fire." 



General Wayne, writing in 17S3 about the Miamis, states 

 that along the river were endless maize fields, the like of 

 which he never saw from Canada to Florida. 2 



Cabeca de Vaca traveled westward through Texas, 3 and the 

 Indians supplied him with prickly pears and occasionally 

 maize, but after crossing a great river coming from the north 

 (Rio Grande), he came into a country "whose inhabitants 

 lived on maize, beans and pumpkins." On August 4, 1528, 

 " incursions were made with the people and horses that were 

 available, and on them were brought back as many as 400 

 fanegas of maize" * [3200 bushels]. 5 Friar Marco de Nica, in 

 1539, traveled through northeastern Mexico, and New Mexico. 

 "And they presented unto me many wilde beastes, as Conies, 

 Ouailes, Maiz, Nuttes of Pine trees and all in great abun- 

 dance." 6 Coronado (1540) immediately set to work to explore 

 the adjacent country near Cibolo (Pueblos). Hearing there 

 was a province in which there were seven towns similar to 

 those of Cibolo, he dispatched thither Dom Pedro de Tobar 

 with seventeen horsemen, three or four soldiers and Friar 

 Juan Padilla, a Franciscan, who had been a soldier in his 

 youth, to explore it. "The rumor had spread among the 

 inhabitants of a very ferocious race of people who bestrode 

 horses that devoured men, and, as they knew nothing about 

 horses, this information filled them with the greatest aston- 



1 Du Pratz, History of Louisiana, 1758, translation, London, 1763- 



- Arch, fur Anthropologic, 18S6, 535; Carr, Lucien, Kentucky Geol. Survey, 11. 



Trumbull, J. E., Torrey Botanical Bulletin, VI, 86. 

 4 Relation Cabeca de Vaca, Smith, N. Y., 1871, 47. 

 "■ Fanega represents eight bushels. 

 c Hakluyt's Early Discovery and Voyages, 1600, 441. 



