Maize: Origin, Domestication, and its Role in the Development of Culture

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Maize as Seen by Europeans
The First News
We shall see that some have accepted the possibility that maize does not have
an American origin, and that it may have been known before the discovery of
America. But as Mangelsdorf (1974: 1) correctly pointed out, the lack of references
to this plant prior to 1492 is the best proof that this was not so.
It has been claimed that maize existed in China before the discovery of America,
but this has been shown to be groundless (see Chapter 8). Some linguists have
tried to prove that maize was known both in the Old World as well as in Africa
before 1492, but this again proved groundless (Manlgelsdorf, 1974: 2).
It was Fernández de Oviedo y Valdéz, as Horkheimer (1958: 37) correctly
pointed out, who raised doubts in this regard. Fernández de Oviedo claimed
that the word milio from the East Indies, which Pliny, the famed Roman naturalist,
mentions, could have been maize:
As a follower of Pliny’s lesson, here I will say what he points out of the millet of
India. I think it is the same thing that we in our Indies call maize. Said author
said these words: “Millet from India has come ten years hence, of black colour,
large kernels, [and] the cane-like stalk grows seven feet . . . and it is more fertile
than all barleys. A grain gives sextarii. It is sown in humid places.”(3) From
these indications I would have it as maize, because if he says it is black, the
maize in Tierra Firme is dark purple and reddish, and also white, and much of
it is yellow. It may be that Pliny did not see it in all of these colours and just
dark purple, which seems to be black. The stalk, which he says is like canes,
is just like maize has it, and whosoever saw it in the field when it grows high,
would think it is a cane field. The maize here is on the most part bigger than
the seven feet he says it grows, and somewhat more, and in other places less,
depending on the fertility and goodness of the soil sown. As for what he says
that it is extremely fertile, I have already pointed out what I have seen, i.e. the
harvesting of eighty and hundred, and a hundred and fifty fanegas 1 from one
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1
The fanega is an ancient Spanish agrarian measure that is equal to 6,439.48 m 2 .