Maize and Mandioca Eaters 45 
June these are weeded out; the success of the crop greatly 
depending upon the thoroughness with which this is done. 
In July each plant has produced two or three ears; and be- 
fore the grain is set these are pulled off, excepting one, as if 
more are left they do not mature well. The young ears are 
boiled whole, and make a tender and much-esteemed veget- 
able. They are called at this stage “ chilote,’ from the 
Aztec «ilotl; and the ancient Mexicans in their eighth 
month, which began on the 16th July, made a great festival, 
called the feast of Xzlonen. The poor Indians now have 
often reason to rejoice when this stage is reached, as their 
stores of corn are generally exhausted before then, and the 
“chilote ”’ is the first fruits of the new crop. In the begin- 
ning of August the grains are fully formed, though still 
tender and white; and it is eaten as green corn, now called 
“elote.”’ In September the maize is ripe, and is gathered 
when dry, and stowed away, generally over the rooms of 
the natives. A second crop is often sown in December. 
Maize is very prolific, bearing a hundredfold, and ripening 
in April. From the most ancient times, maize has been the 
principal food of the inhabitants of the western side of 
tropical America. On the coast of Peru, Darwin found 
heads of it,’ along with eighteen recent species of marine 
shells, in a raised beach eighty-five feet above the level of the 
sea; and in the same country it has been found in tombs 
apparently more ancient than the earliest times of the Incas.” 
In Mexico it was known from the earliest times of which we 
have any record, in the picture writings of the Toltecs; and 
that ancient people carried it with them in all their wander- 
ings. In Central America the stone grinders, with which 
they bruised it down, are almost invariably found in the 
ancient graves, having been buried with the ashes of the 
dead, as an indispensable article for their outfit for another 
world. When Florida and Louisiana were first discovered, 
the native Indian tribes all cultivated maize as their staple 
food; and throughout Yucatan, Mexico, and all the western 
side of Central America, and through Peru to Chili, it was, 
and still is, the main sustenance of the Indians. The people 
1 Geological Observations in South America, 1846, p. 49; and Animals 
and Plants under Domestication, vol. i. p. 320. 
2 Von Tschudi, Travels in Peru, English edition, p. 177. 
