MAN’ FROM THE FARTHEST ‘PAS? 
prevented the dense growths of forest and bush which ren- 
der farming operations so difficult in many places even to- 
day. In parts of this plateau region, indeed, irrigation was 
found necessary in order to induce crops to grow at all. 
The ingenuity developed in meeting this need led in turn 
to still further advances in civilization. 
This Archaic culture, as it 1s called, included not merely 
food-planting but also the making of pottery and the 
weaving of baskets. The New World remained wholly 
ignorant of the plow until Europeans brought it in. The 
hoe, of stone, bone, or shell, and the planting:stick con- 
stituted the farming implements, and the women did most 
of the field work for the reasons given in Chapter XII. 
Great reliance was placed on magic and religious cere- 
monies in trying to assure an abundant harvest. Out of 
this developed in some regions the practice of human sacri- 
fice on a scale rarely if ever equaled. 
Doubtless much experimenting, conscious or otherwise, 
with different wild plants took place before these prehis- 
toric Americans determined the most useful ones. The 
plant destined to prove of the greatest value was maize, 
or Indian corn. (‘“Corn” properly means what we in 
America call “grain.””) This seems most probably to have 
been developed very early by cultivation from a wild grass 
on the highlands of Mexico. It spread steadily both 
north and south, as more and more people came to recog- 
nize its value. This happened the more easily because in 
war, while the men prisoners were usually killed, the 
women were more apt to be carried off into captivity; and 
it was precisely they who knew and could teach their cap- 
tors the processes of primitive agriculture. In time maize 
thus spread over a great part of the Western Hemisphere, 
where, like wheat and rice in the Old World, it became the 
basis of civilization. 
Beans and squashes probably ranked next in importance 
among. American food plants. “Irish” potatoes were 
grown to some extent in Peru, and sweet potatoes seem to 
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