78 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 55 



Along with this decline in thrift the diet of the "progressive" Tewa 

 pueblos tends to become very monotonous. The standard of variety 

 has been lowered. Once the people's own idea of a good diet embraced 

 cultivated plants in addition to wild plants in season in considerable 

 variety, drawing on the greatest possible number of different food 

 plants, since the available quantity of any single plant was limited. 

 Now the people draw on the unlimited but unvaried supplies of the 

 American store, or on what they can afford to buy of them — white 

 flour, coffee, and sugar. To buy what the store offers is less trouble 

 than to hunt for plants in the open; further, an ideal of women's work 

 and behavior is growing up which rather discourages the old activi- 

 ties. The women are not to help to provide food (except by earning 

 money), but to keep a clean house, cook, and serve hot meals. 



The standard of variety in cooking has also declined, as may be seen 

 by comparing the number of ways in which corn is cooked at Santa 

 Clara with those at Hano. Like all Indian arts, cookery is suffering 

 from a half-conscious discouragement in which perfection is no longer 

 aimed at, because of the overwhelming superiority of American civil- 

 ization. Many progressive families deliberately aim at the monoto- 

 nous diet of the whites with whom they come in contact, but attain 

 onlv a poor imitation of it. 



PLANTS CULTIVATED BY THE TEWA BEFORE THE SPANISH CONQUEST 



K'u, Hano Tewa ]cy,lij,y. 



Zea mays. Maize, Corn, Spanish maiz (New Mexican Spanish 

 pronunciation, mdis). 

 For the names of the various parts of the corn plant see figure 6. 



Varieties op Corn 



Zea mays has a strong tendency to variation in the coat-color of the 

 seed, and the Pueblo Indians have long possessed and distinguished 

 several varieties based on this character.^ Castano de Sosa^ noted in 

 1 590-91 that the New Mexican pueblos had maize and beans of several 

 colors — "el maiz hera de muchas colores, e lo propio es el frisol." 

 Since a number of such color-varieties in maize were found in widel}^ 

 separated parts of North America at the time of the European dis- 

 covery,^ it is most probable that some of them at least had become 



1 Nordenskiold, Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, p. 93 (and pi. xlv, description): "Ears of maize 

 found in the ruins . . . belong to several varieties, and are yellow (yellowish gray) and (dark) 

 reddish-brown. I never found an ear similar in color to the blue corn of the Mokis." 



2 Doc. Ined. de Indias, xv, 238. 



3 See the following: Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Reportof Virginia (quoted by Thomas, Mound 

 Explorations, i:;th Ann. Hep. Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 61G): "Pagatowr, a kind of grain so called by the 

 inhabitants; thesamein the West Indies is called Mayze, Englishmen call it Guiuy-wheat or Turkey* 



