A Botanical and Economic Study, 149 



before weeding the plot. The first fruits were consecrated 

 to their deities. 1 



The Peruvians, during the feast Capacraqui, in the first 

 month Raymi, permitted no stranger to lodge in Cuzco. In 

 the early portion of the month Hatuncuzqui, corresponding 

 to our May, the Peruvians gathered their maize, and kept the 

 feast Aymorai. " They returned home singing from the 

 fields, with them a large heap of maize, which they called 

 Perua, wrapping it up in rich garments. They continued 

 these ceremonies for three nights, imploring the Perua to 

 preserve their harvest of maize from any danger." 



This historical review shows conclusively that maize was of 

 all plants the one used universally by the Indians. 



G. Summary and Recapitulation. 



A glance at the American continents a century before the 

 Columbian voyages shows the greater portion of the con- 

 tinental areas occupied by hunter tribes just emerging from a 

 wild nomadic life and entering upon a partial sedentary agri- 

 cultural condition. In the eastern United States, the trees 

 were girdled by the stone axes of the aborigines, seed was 

 sown between the trees, and corn planted in these forest clear- 

 ings and on the rich river bottoms grew luxuriantly. The 

 prairie was inhabited by nomadic tribes, who made buffalo 

 hunting their principal business, while here and there over 

 the broad surface of the central plain, tribes more sedentarily 

 inclined, as the Mound-builders of the Ohio and the Pawnees 

 of Louisiana, cultivated maize. A little further to the west, 

 in the arid tracts of the West, lived tribes in storied structures 

 of adobe, who raised their crops by irrigation of the simplest 

 description. Closely allied to these Pueblo Indians, in the 

 common derivation of their house styles, were the timid cliff- 

 dwellers, who hid themselves in the caves and pockets of the 

 canon sides. Far to the south, on the plains of Anahuac, 



1 Ximenez. Francisco, Las Historias del Origin de los Indios, London, 1857, >9i ; 

 Crinton, Annals of the Cakchiquels, 13. 



■ Trans. New York Agric. Soc, 1878,47: Browne. D. J., Trans. New York Agric. 

 Soc, 1848, 690. 



