FOOD PLANTS OF ANCIENT AMERICA. , 493 



As long" recognized by historians and ethnologists, maize was the 

 most important factor in the material progress of ancient America, and 

 the American civilizations remained on a much more strictly agricul- 

 tural basis than those of the Old World, a fact not without practical 

 signiticanee to modern agriculture, since it undoubtedly conduced to 

 the more careful selection and improvement of the many valuable plants 

 which we owe to the ancient peoples of America. Subordinate only to 

 maize from the agricultural standpoint was the domestication of the 

 beans, while the materials for a developed culinary art and a varied 

 and wholesome diet were furnished bj^ a variety of minor products, like 

 the Cayenne popper, the tomato, the tree tomato (( 'uplionuDidrfi)^ the 

 pineapple, sev^eral species of the strawberry tomato {Physalia)^ the paw- 

 paw (Carica), the granadilla {PaKsiflora quadrangularis), the gourd, 

 the squash, and the peanut. American fruit trees, such as the cus- 

 tard apple and related species of Aurtona, the avocado {Persea)^ the 

 sapodilla, Mammea and Liccuma, afford refreshing acids, beverages, 

 relishes, or salads, but do not furnish substantial food like the banana. 

 Contrary to the opinion of De Candolle there is every probability that 

 the banana reached America from the west long before the arrival of 

 the Spaniards, but it evidently did not come until after the agriculture 

 and cultivated plants of America had spread into the Pacific. 



NO PASTOEAL PERIOD IN AMERICA. 



Relying on the traditions of the peoples of western Asia and the 

 Mediterranean region, many writers have assumed that animals were 

 domesticated before plants, and that a pastoral stage marked the first 

 step of primitive man from savagery toward civilization. There are, 

 however, no indications of such a period in the agricultural history of 

 the ancient peoples of America, nor among the ''orientar' nations of 

 the Asiatic shores of the Pacific and Indian oceans. The straight- 

 haired men of both continents were primarily domesticators and culti- 

 vators of plants. The Chibcha people of the interior of Colombia 

 attained a considerable degree of advancement without adopting a 

 single domestic animal. The Peruvians and Chinese learned to use 

 beasts of burden and animal fibers and skins, but their pastoral efforts 

 were merely incidental to agriculture; they remained essentialh' vege- 

 tarians, eating little meat, other than fish, and never taking up the use 

 of milk. 



A settled agricultural existence made it practicable, however, to 

 tame animals, and it may well be dou))ted whether any animal, with 

 the possible exception of the dog, was domesticated ])y wandering 

 savages. The lack of useful domestic animals in ancient America has 

 been discussed by Payne " and other historians as an evidence of the 



« History of the New World called America, Vol. II. 



