150 Harshberger. — Maize; 



dwelt a people with established armies, central government 

 and populous cities, with temples, palaces and market places, 

 the latter supplied with the fresh produce of the surrounding 

 country. The Nahua civilization, which reached so high a 

 plane, was, nevertheless, preceded by one which in many 

 respects excelled that of the Aztecs, and excavations clearly 

 attest to the vigor and numerical strength of this peaceful 

 agricultural race. 



The different tribes of the American race all showed pecu- 

 liar individual idiosyncrasies, but linguistic study shows that, 

 with all this diversity, American agriculture was borrowed 

 from a common source — the Mayas of central Mexico. 



Philological comparisons show that the Indians east of the 

 Mississippi, the Iroquois, the Mound-builders, the Algonquins 

 and the Muskogees obtained maize from across the "Father 

 of Waters," probably from the Caddos, who in turn derived it 

 from the northern Mexican tribes. The Pueblos, as archae- 

 ology and ethnology seem to prove, are only a few centuries 

 removed from the wild state exhibited by the roving Apaches 

 and Navajos, and, therefore, as compared with that of the 

 Mayas, their agriculture is comparatively recent. 



Philology places the Nahuas in the Shoshonean stock with 

 the poor root-digging Ute of the plains. Their warlike pro- 

 pensities and love of conquest carried them south, until they 

 reached the plateau of Anahuac, when, attracted by the 

 peaceful and promising surroundings, they laid aside their 

 savage life and copied the superior civilization and agriculture 

 of the tribes (Maya) about them. 



Archaeology and ethnology both place the Mayas in the 

 vanguard as husbandmen, and to reach this development 

 required considerable time ; the cultivation of Yucatan and 

 southern central Mexico, as the permanent seat of this race, 

 antedates the tilling of the soil by the Peruvians 1 on the one 

 hand, or the pueblo-builders on the other. 



Hieroglyphics 2 on the monuments at Palenque, indicate 

 that maize was the chief food of the people of Yucatan ; 



1 The Standard Natural History, Vol. VI, 219, corroborates this statement. 

 - Science, xxi, 1893, 8. 



