clusions on general botanical and ethnological grounds, 
and by Weatherwax (1950), who has quite appropriately 
emphasized the important and fundamental differences 
which exist between maize and its Asiatic relatives, and 
has simultaneously emphasized the similarities among 
the American Maydeae. We propose here to examine 
critically the botanical and ethnographic evidence con- 
cerned with maize upon which the far-reaching conclu- 
sions of the authors rest. 
Stonor and Anderson found the hill peoples of Assam 
growing a group of maize varieties with characters said 
to be ‘‘unusual’’ and utilizing them for food, feed, and 
brewing. This maize which the authors designate as 
‘*Race A”’ is said to be unknown in the coastal regions 
of Asia, but rather widely distributed in Central Asia; 
furthermore, it seems to resemble certain South Ameri- 
can maize also designated as ‘‘Race A’’ which is common 
archaeologically and certain features of which are still to 
be found, although rarely, among living South American 
varieties. These peculiar Asiatic varieties differ pro- 
foundly from those of ‘‘Race C’’ which also occur in 
both Asia and America, but which in Asia are largely 
confined to the coastal regions. The introduction of Race 
C to Asia is admittedly post-Columbian. 
These facts are regarded by the authors as ‘‘fantastic, ”’ 
and it is stated that ‘‘any satisfying hypothesis must 
border on the miraculous.’’ They conclude that maize 
presumably ‘‘must either have originated in Asia or have 
been taken there in pre-Columbian times. ’’ 
The evidence upon which these sweeping conclusions 
rests falls into three categories: (1) botanical evidence 
concerning the maize in question; (2) ethnographic evi- 
dence on the maize-using tribes and the uses to which 
maize is put; (3) supporting evidence from Polynesia in 
favor of trans-Pacific diffusion. We shall consider only 
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