ETE 
1885.] Indian Corn and the Indian. 227 
of gold and silver ” (¢., 1, 283). Acosta also describes ceremo- 
nies in which maize took part. 
It seems certain that the Indians of America were often agri- 
cultural, especially under circumstances where the soil was favor- 
able, and where tribal strength admitted of the protection of 
their crops, and that maize was cultivated not only sufficient for 
their own wants but also to admit of furnishing supplies to others 
in need. We think it well to bring together evidence to this 
effect connected with the northern portion of our country. 
In the Icelandic Saga, in 1006, Karlsefne arrived at a place 
called Hop, at the mouth of a river, which may as well be the St. 
Lawrence as any other, as this seems to answer the conditions of 
the narrative, and “they found there upon the land self sown 
fields of wheat, there where the ground was low, but vines there 
where it rose somewhat” (Icelandic Sagas, Prince Soc. ed., p. 
54), and “sent out two Scotch people to explore; when they 
returned they brought back a bunch of grapes, and a new sowen 
ear of wheat” (Voyages of the Northmen, Prince Soc. Pub., p. 
51). “The same year (1002) [Rafn.], sailing from Greenland 
westward, Thorwald, brother of Lief, reached the wintering place 
in Vinland [mouth of the St. Lawrence]. The following sum- 
mer * * * * on an island far westward ‘met with a wooden 
Kornhjalmr,’ but saw no other signs of inhabitants, nor of wild 
beasts ” (Pickering Chron. Hist. of Pl., p. 664). In 1535, Jacques 
Cartier, at Hochelega, now Montreal {the island far westward ?], 
“began to find goodly and large fields, full of such corn as the 
country yieldeth; it is even as the millet of Brazil, as great and 
somewhat bigger than small peason, wherewith they live even as 
we do, with ours” (Pinkerton’s Coll. of Voy., XII, 651), and else- 
where he says: “At the top of the houses were garners where 
they kept their corn, which was something like the millet of 
Brazil, and called by them Carracony (Tytler’s Disc. of N. Coast 
of Am., p. 46), and he further states that the town was situated 
in the midst of extensive corn fields and the houses were large 
and commodious (Cartier’s Voy. Hak. Coll.). Another name for 
the corn seemed to have been offici, and he also adds: “ They 
have also great store of musk-millons, pompions, gourds, cucum- 
bers, peason and beans of every color, yet differing from ours” 
(Pinkerton’s Voy., xu, 656). In 1613 Champlain found at Lake 
Coulonge, on the Ottawa river, a crop of maize growing (Park- 
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