be if all native informants were indeed as historically 
reliable as the Assamese are inferred to be. But what 
a confusing picture of the origin of cultivated plants one 
would gain by giving credence to such unsupported state- 
ments. ‘This conviction on the part of native peoples that 
they have ‘‘always”’ had a certain plant is by no means 
confined to the Assamese. Dr. Carl Coons tells us that 
the natives of Albania are convinced that they have al- 
ways had tobacco. ‘The native peoples of the Near East 
are quite certain that they have always had squashes; and 
Irish peasants, if the question were put to them, would 
no doubt answer that they have always had the potato. 
The Indians of Central America are convinced that they 
have always cultivated the banana, a fact which would 
undoubtedly be regarded by some as evidence of early 
trans-Pacific diffusion. But the same Indians, or their 
neighbors at slightly higher altitudes, are equally sure 
that they have always had the broad bean Vicia Faba, 
one of Europe’s principal leguminous food plants. 
Legends to account for the origin of rice are regarded 
by Stonor as significant, since there is ‘‘no legend known 
to account for the origin of the other cereals; millet, 
maize and Job’s-tears, the inference being that rice is 
more recent while the others are lost in the mists of an- 
tiquity.’’ ‘This is, to say the least, an unusual criterion 
of ethnological age. 
Stonor found distinct names for maize in several of the 
tribes surveyed and regarded this as ‘‘everywhere indica- 
tive of a respectable age,’’ and he did not consider the 
case weakened in instances where the tribal name indi- 
cates that it was borrowed from a neighboring people, 
since ‘‘the generalized name could be based on a variety 
got from the tribe in question and which supplanted 
older and more indigenous types.’” The fact that there 
is no evidence of any kind of ‘‘older and more indige- 
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