12 MAIZE 



CHAP, carried on by way of the Isthmus of Panama ; (4) that the wild 

 tribes living along the Andean system and in the El-Gran- 

 Chaco and elsewhere used Peruvian loan-words for maize; (5) 

 that South American words for maize extended throughout the 

 Greater and Lesser Antilles and Florida, and that the Arawak 

 word for Indian corn, adopted by Christopher Columbus, was 

 used by tribes of that stock in the impenetrable and luxuriant 

 Brazilian forests. 



On the shores of the island of San Lorenzo, Peru, Darwin 

 (1) found "the head of a stalk of Indian corn," embedded 

 among shells and sea-drifted rubbish with some bits of cotton 

 thread and plaited rush similar to those obtained in ancient 

 Peruvian huacas or burial mounds. The stratum in which 

 this was found had been elevated to a height of 85 feet above 

 sea-level, and was itself overlaid by other strata, containing 

 shells, etc., and having a thickness of over 85 feet, indicating 

 great antiquity. 



12. Introduction into Europe. — De Candolle (1) finds that 

 maize was unknown in Europe at the time of the Roman 

 Empire. Fee (1) states that from the year A.D. 1500 maize 

 had been sent from America to Seville for cultivation. From 

 Spain it was introduced into France and Italy, Turkey and 

 other parts of Eastern Europe. 



13. Introduction into Africa. — The wide distribution and 

 extensive use and cultivation of maize on the African conti- 

 nent have led many to suppose that the plant was indigenous, 

 or at least in use from time immemorial among the aboriginal 

 peoples. But this was not so. Burchell (1), who visited what 

 is now British Bechuanaland in 181 2, makes no mention of 

 maize in his account of the crops cultivated by the Bechuanas, 

 though he notes its use and cultivation in Griqualand West, 

 at the Mission Station at " Klaarwater " and at " Jan Bloems 

 Kraal" in the Asbestos Mountains, in 181 1. It was there 

 grown for poultry food, but he also notes that " the half-ripe 

 heads, when boiled, made a very agreeable and wholesome 

 dish". He notes that it was planted in the first week in 

 October and came into flower before the middle of December. 



Visiting Burchell's old camp at Litakoon, Bechuanaland, 

 in 191 2, the writer met a native who remembered Moffat, and 

 the introduction of maize into Bechuanaland by the mission- 

 aries ; now it is one of their staple crops. 



