1 
AE 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 26, 1894. 
CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY.— 
NO. XXXVIII. 
(Edited by D. G. Brinton, M. D., LL. D., D. Sc.) 
Origin and Distribution of Maize in America. 
Tue best study which has yet appeared on maize, both 
from the botanical, historical and economic points of 
view, is one recently published in Vol. I. of the ‘‘Contri- 
butions from the Botanical Laboratory of the University 
of Pennsylvania,” by Dr. John W. Harshberger. 
With regard to its origin, he traces it to the highlands 
of Mexico, somewhat south of the twenty-second degree 
of north latitude. He believes that from that point it 
was introduced into the area of the United States from 
two sources, from the tribes of northern Mexico and from 
the West India Islands. The Pueblo and northern Mex- 
ican tribes derived it from southern Mexico. It penetra- 
ted to South America by.way of the Isthmus of Panama, 
whence it extended southward along the great Andean 
system until it reached the Gran Chaco, where we find 
the native tribes, no way related to the Kechuas of Peru, 
borrowing its name, as they doubtless did the cereal itself, 
from these cultivated people. South American words for 
maize extended all over the West Indian Islands, showing 
that it was introduced to this archipelago from the 
southern continent. 
These results are new and most interesting. The state- 
ment that the Caribs introduced it into Florida, and that 
the Antillean word for maize was found in Florida, or in 
the area of the Gulf States, is an error derived from old 
authorities whose assertions are now considered unreliable. 
The Caribs. 
Apropos of the questions about the Caribs, their origi 
nal home and their lines of dispersion (see Sczence, Dec. 
27, 1893, Pp. 361), the whole subject is most ably and sat- 
isfactorily presented in the recent volume of Dr. Carl von 
den Steinen, entitled ‘‘Unter den Naturvélkern Brasil- 
iens.” It is a handsome book, large octavo, with thirty 
full-page plates, and 160 illustrations in the text, of 562 
pages, and containing eleven vocabularies of the native 
dialects. It is based upon the author’s observations and 
studies in his second expedition to the head waters of the 
Schingu River, in the years 1887 and 1888. 
Besides the narrative of the expedition, the work con- 
tains a very complete anthropological description of the 
native tribes encountered, especially those of the Carib 
stock. He sets forth their arts, traditions, mental and 
physical peculiarities, costumes, etc., with desirable full- 
ness. The question of the primitive home of the Caribs 
is answered by an admirable linguistic analysis of the 
numerous dialects of the family, and the changes in pho- 
netics and grammatical forms which they underwent in 
their long separation from the mother tongue. For this 
the author was peculiarly well prepared by his patient and 
fruitful investigations of the Bakairi dialect, probably the 
most primitive in its form of any, reference to which was 
made in one of my previous notes (Sczence, Aug. 26, 1892). 
Those who wish to obtain the latest and the most trust- 
worthy views about the wonderings of these redoubtable 
warriors should turn to the pages of this valuable book. 
Basque and Berber. 
Tue ethnic relations of the Basques, who now to the 
number of a scant half million live in the valleys of the 
Pyrenees, partly in France and partly in Spain, have long 
been, and continue to be, a difficult puzzle. (See Sczence, 
July 7, 1893.) 
The latest attempt to unravel them is by the Professor 
G. von der Gabelentz, whose recent loss to science is so 
regrettable. In an article which was issued in the pro- 
ceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, in 1893, 
entitled ‘‘Baskish und Berberisch,” he institutes a compar- 
ison between these two languages and claims to show that 
Basque is a Hamitic tongue, related to the Berber dialects 
of north Africa. He believed that this relationship had 
not heretofore been maintained, which is an error, as so 
far back as 1876 Dr. Tubino, of Madrid, in his ‘‘Aborig- 
ines: Ibericos,’’ compared the two idioms for the same 
purpose. 
Several of the analogies presented by both these writers 
are certainly so close and so striking that it seems un- 
reasonable to attribute them to chance; but if they are 
real, do they establish the claim of a descent of the 
Basque from the primitive Hamitic stock? No; because 
they are of such a character that they might well have 
belonged to the class of loan-words and have been bor- 
rowed from the large colony of Berber descent which 
there are cogent reasons to believe peopled much of the 
Iberian Peninsula in remote semi-historic times. The 
modern Basque has borrowed enormously from French 
and Spanish, and so did ancient Basque from Berber and 
Celtic dialects. 
Micmac Studies. 
Tue late Rev. Silas T. Rand was for forty years a mis- 
sionary among the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia. He 
was a versatile linguist and acquired a more thorough 
knowledge of their language, traditions and mode of life 
than any white man had previously attained. In the later 
years of his life he compiled an extensive dictionary in 
two parts, Micmac-English and English-Micmac. The 
Government of the Dominion undertook its publication, 
but the author died after the first part only had passed 
through the press. The second part remains in manu- 
script in the possession of the Dominion Government, and 
it is not likely to see the light in print for a long time to 
come, if ever. 
Mr. Rand took especial pleasure in collecting the tales, 
legends and myths of the tribe from the old men and 
women who recollected them from a long time back. He 
