-♦ Anthropology: Historical 



These people, who were the great benefactors of East and 

 West Africa as regards the introduction of new food products, 

 also broucrht to Liberia the pineapple, guava, tomato, capsicum 

 (red pepper), sweet potato, maize, cassava {Manihot')^ papaw, the 

 orange and lime, and the short form of banana.^ The coffee tree 

 is an indigenous form ; cacao was only introduced towards the 

 close of the nineteenth century ; castor -oil is also indigenous, 

 though it may possibly have come from the more northern 

 regions ; the bread-fruit and mango have also been introduced 

 during the nineteenth century. The origin of the coconut palm 

 is uncertain, and has been already commented on. The cocco 

 yam or edible arum {Colocasia) is of African origin, and may have 

 found its way hence from the more eastern regions. The cotton 

 plant is partly indigenous and partly derived from cultivated 

 forms introduced from Egypt or America. Onions were 

 originally brought by the Arabs to the Niger regions, and were 

 introduced by the Mandingo into Liberia. - There remains 

 only to be considered the origin of the ground-nut {Arachis 

 and Voand-zeiii)^ which is still very uncertain. Some authorities 

 think that ground-nuts are indigenous to Atrica, others that 

 the genus Arachis had its home in South America. On the 

 whole the balance of origin seems in favour ot an African or 

 Oriental origin, and that these forms were early introduced from 

 West Africa — Senegambia — into Tropical America, l/oandzeia 

 is a native of Madagascar. 



As regards domestic animals, the dog was the earliest in 

 Negroland, and then after a very long interval — an interval 

 during which Liberia's Miocene forests may still have been 



' The long banana or plantain seems to have existed in Tropical Africa from 

 a very distant period. It must have been introduced from India unless (which 

 does not seem likely) it was developed from the indigenous wild Miisce. 



^ But also into Vai-land by the Portuguese. One of the Vai names for onion 

 is sipara — a corruption of the Portuguese cebola. 



90 J 



