PLANTS CULTIVATED FOE THEIR SEEDS. 397 



ancient Peruvians scarcely knew the Mexicans, and vice 

 versa, as the total difference of their beliefs and customs 

 shows. As they both early cultivated maize, we must 

 suppose an intermediate point of departure. New 

 Granada seems to me to fulfil these conditions. The 

 nation called Chibcha which occupied the table-land of 

 Bogota at the time of the Spanish conquest, and con- 

 sidered itself aboriginal, was an agricultural people. It 

 enjoyed a certain degree of civilization, as the monu- 

 ments recently investigated show. Perhaps this tribe 

 first possessed and cultivated maize. It marched with 

 Peru, then but little civilized, on the one hand, and with 

 the Mayas on the other, who occupied Central America 

 and Yucatan. These were often at war with the Nahuas, 

 predecessors of the Toltecs and the Aztecs in Mexico. 

 There is a tradition that Nahualt, chief of the Nahuas, 

 taught the cultivation of maize. 1 



I dare not hope that maize will be found wild, although 

 its habitation before it was cultivated was probably so 

 small that botanists have perhaps not yet come across it. 

 The species is so distinct from all others, and so striking, 

 that natives or unscientific colonists would have noticed 

 and spoken of it. The certainty as to its origin will 

 probably come rather from archaeological discoveries. It 

 a great number of monuments in all parts of America 

 are studied, if the hieroglyphical inscriptions of some of 

 these are deciphered, and if dates of migrations and 

 economical events are discovered, our hypothesis will be 

 justified, modified, or rejected. 



Article II. Seeds used for Different Purposes. 



Poppy Papaver somniferum, Linnaeus. 

 The poppy is usually cultivated for the oil contained 

 in the seed, and sometimes, especially in Asia, for the sap, 



Temps PreTiistoriques, gives briefly the sum of our knowledge of these 

 migrations of the ancient peoples of America in general. See especially 

 vol. ii. chap. 9. 



1 De Naidaillac, ii. p. 69, who quotes Bancroft, The Native Races of the 

 Pacific States. 



