1 5 4 Harshberger. — Maize : 



CHAPTER III. 



Geographical Distribution. 



\A AIZE originated in all probability in a circumscribed 

 / \ locality, above 4500 feet elevation, north of the Isthmus 

 of Tehuantepec and south of the twenty-second degree 

 of north latitude, near the ancient seat of the Maya tribes. 

 There is hardly a doubt but that the Mayas first cultivated 

 maize and distributed it in every direction. The time that 

 this people emerged from obscure savagery is not known, but 

 it was not earlier than the advent of the Christian era. This 

 places a time limit on the cultivation of maize. From the 

 Mayas, the use of the cereal spread north and south. The 

 Nicaraguan and Isthmian tribes obtained it from tribes 

 farther north. The Isthmian Indians traded with the Chib- 

 chas, who were in close commercial intercourse with the 

 Peruvian State, in the region of Quito. The indomitable 

 Inca race enlarged its territory by conquest until its influ- 

 ence, dominion and agriculture extended to the farthest limits 

 of Chili. Comparative philology affords definite proof that the 

 wild tribes in the El-Gran-Chaco and on the Cordilleras learned 

 their use from the Incas, for the tribes along the Ucayali, 

 Mamore and Beni rivers have Peruvian loan-words for maize. 

 The Arawaks, who later peopled the West Indian Islands, 

 knew maize when still in their primitive home in the Bolivian 

 highlands, and it is probable that their knowledge of agricul- 

 ture was derived from their more cultured neighbors on the 

 Pacific coast plain. The Arawak words for maize used by 

 the tribes on the islands and in central South America are 

 identical in form in many cases, and it is surely safe to say, 

 therefore, that Indian corn was carried by the Caribs and 

 Arawaks from the South American continent by way of 

 Guiana and the Greater and Lesser Antilles to Florida. 



