O. F. Cook — History of the Coconut Palm in America. 225 



the idea that the coconut palm was originally domesticated in 

 ancient America. 



The name " coco" does not appear to have been applied to 

 the " Indian nut" till after the discovery of America and is to 

 be considered as a word derived from the natives of the West 

 Indies. Other native names for the coconut are found among 

 primitive tribes of Costa Rica, as well as in Brazil. 



The presence of large numbers of coconuts on Cocos Island 

 in the time of "Wafer (1685) and their subsequent disappearance 

 should be considered as evidence that the island was formerly 

 inhabited, or at least regularly visited, by the maritime natives 

 of the adjacent mainland. 



The fact that the coconut is largely restricted to islands and 

 tropical countries of low elevation explains its importance 

 among the preeminently maritime people of the Old World 

 tropics and its relatively slight importance among the nonmari- 

 time natives of the lowland tropics of America. 



The evidence of the prehistoric dissemination of the coconut 

 and other American cultivated plants across the Pacific Ocean 

 is such as to warrant a careful consideration of other indica- 

 tions that agricultural civilization developed originally in 

 America and was distributed to the shores of the Pacific and 

 Indian oceans by a primitive people with agricultural and 

 maritime habits, like those of the Polynesians and Malays. 



The existence of a distinct tribe of frizzle-haired people near 

 the Isthmus of Panama at the time of the discovery does not 

 rest alone on Peter Martyr's casual mention of the finding of 

 negroes, but is supported by Oviedo's contemporary history 

 written directly from the testimony of Balboa and other mem- 

 bers of his expedition, just after their return to Darien. The 

 facts are not to be explained reasonably by assuming a chance 

 arrival of African negroes, but indicate that prehistoric com- 

 munication across the Pacific continued after the frizzle-haired 

 Melanesian race had spread westward in the Pacific. 



Such communication would account for the existence of the 

 banana plant in America previous to the arrival of the Span- 

 iards, as well as for the Old World distribution of the coconut 

 palm and other cultivated plants of American origin. The 

 banana plant is as evidently a native of the eastern continent 

 as the coconut palm of the western. Evidence of these facts 

 appears very definite and concrete from the biological stand- 

 point, and is worthy of careful consideration by ethnologists. 



Agricultural Conclusions. 



The coconut is confined to seacoasts only in the humid low- 

 lands of the Tropics ; in dry regions it is not restricted to 

 coasts, but thrives in many districts remote from the sea. The 



