IMPORTANCE AND HISTORY 13 



In the tenth century, according to Abn Zeyd Hassan and chap. 

 " Suleiman the Merchant," the Zeng peoples, the progenitors L 

 of the eastern branch of the Bantu-speaking races now south 

 of the Zambesi, who were then located north of that -river, 

 in the country round Zanzibar, grew millet, which was their 

 chief food (Tooke, 1). Giant millet or kaffir corn {Sorghum 

 vulgare) appears to have been the former staple food-stuff 

 of the natives of much of temperate South Africa. North- 

 wards in the Bush-veld this was supplemented, and in places 

 perhaps replaced by pearl millet or m'nyouti {Pennisetum 

 spicatwn), and still farther north, within the tropics, rapoko 

 (Eleusine Coracana) was largely used. 



Writing on the bearing of Bantu philology on early Bantu 

 life, the Rev. Father Norton (1) states: — 



"We find a tradition that sweet-reed and millet, or kafir- 

 corn, were given to the first human couple; maize, on the 

 other hand, was introduced in historic times by the Portuguese 

 to the Becoana, to eke out their scanty list of cane, pumpkin, 

 beans, melon. Our old centenarian told me that mealies ap- 

 peared in Modderpoort district together with the missionaries." 



Mr. Allister M. Miller of Mbabane, Swaziland, who pro- 

 bably knows as much, if not more, about Swaziland than any 

 other man living, writes that from inquiries he made many 

 years ago, he is of opinion that maize was introduced into 

 Swaziland about the time the Hlamini clan, the conquerors of 

 that territory, crossed from Tongaland, say the end of the 

 eighteenth century. They do not call it by their word for 

 " food," mabela, but by the Zulu words m'lungu, meaning 

 " white man," or m'bila, the Zulu name for maize. 



Maize would easily be carried from the north shores of the 

 Mediterranean to the ports of Northern Africa, and probably 

 reached the latter from Spain and Italy, with which countries 

 there was much commerce in those days. In 1623 Caspar 

 Bauhin referred to the occurrence of pod-maize (Zea Mays 

 L. var. tunicata St. Hil.) in Ethiopia under the name of 

 manigette. 



But its introduction into other parts of the African conti- 

 nent is traceable to the Portuguese, who were great voyagers 

 in the sixteenth century ; they had colonies in Brazil and in the 



