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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



in the case, there are several reasons 

 why we should expect to find the first 

 appearance of agriculture in an arid 

 environment. The press of population 

 on food supply is greater there than in 

 the free-and-easv lands wliere nature 



man culture, there is usually such a 

 supply of wild game, of berries, and of 

 edible roots, that the advantage of till- 

 ing the soil does not at first appear. 

 Even when agriculture is known in 

 sucli favoral)]c countrv, the indioenous 



The "maize god" of the Peruvians (see figure at the left) was buried in the field as a prayer for good 

 crops, and in some sections the ceremony is still kept up. The body is formed of molded ears of maize. 



The cemetery of Chimbote on the arid coast of Peru has furnished us this jar decorated with peanuts 

 (water jar at right). The realism of these ancient casts made from molds is in contrast witli the rather 

 conventional treatment of modeled representations 



is bountiful but where an insidious 

 competition works behind the screen of 

 plenty and cuts down life. In the 

 desert the clearing of the field is less 

 laborious than in the jungle, and the 

 control of the life-giving water makes 

 man the master of the entire situation. 

 As for the intermediate type of en- 

 vironment, wbere agriculture is possi- 

 ble without irrigation, and where it 

 normally sjDreads with the rise of Im- 



plants are seldom found under culti- 

 vation.^ 



It is perhaps an open question 

 whether the extreme tendency to con- 

 serve energy, seen in most desert 

 plants, has not increased their com- 



1 Tlie abundant harvests of wild acorns in Cali- 

 fornia, of wokas in southern Oregon, of wappato 

 along the Columbia, of camas and kous in the 

 pleasant uplands of Idaho, and of wild rice in the 

 lake regions of Minnesota and southern Canada, 

 were effectual barriers against the invention or 

 spread of agriculture among the tribes inhabiting 

 these regions. 



