In Peru, the potato (Solanum tuberosum) was especially developed. It is doubtful if this plant was known to the Mexicans, although it was commonly grown throughout the Andean region and a wild form occurs as far north as Colorado. Peanuts (Arachis hypogaea) also appear to be a Peruvian specialty. There was a sort of fruit called by the Aztecs tlalcacauatl ("earth cacao"), which is said to have been roasted before eating. This fruit may possibly be identified with the peanut, since the modern Mexico word for peanut is cacahuate. In South America the Peruvian word mani is used. Several wild species of peanuts are said to occur in South America. Other Peruvian and Colombian products are the roots of oca (Ocalis crenata and O. tuberosa) and of arracacha (Arracacia xanthorrhiza). Great use was also made in Peru of the seeds of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa). In Mexico dry seeds of similar type appear to have been used in quantity.

The second type of agriculture is that developed to meet the conditions of the humid and heavily forested tropics. The Maya culture, probably the most brilliant of the New World, was made possible by the agricultural conquest of the rich lowlands of Central America. On the highlands the preparation of the soil is comparatively easy owing to scanty vegetation and a control vested in irrigation. On the lowlands, however, great trees have to be felled and fast-growing bushes kept down by untiring energy. But when nature is truly tamed she returns recompense many fold to the daring farmers. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the removal of the forest cover over large areas affects favorably the conditions of human life which under a canopy of leaves are hard indeed. . . . But while extremely high civilization might result when the natural wealth of the humid tropics was garnered by a closely organized people, the general run of more or less haphazard agriculture in the tropics leads to no such state of affairs. In the great Amazon valley and in the flanking valleys of the Orinoco and the Plata, we find agriculture unaccompanied by high social developments, although weaving and potterymaking are everywhere practised. Maize, beans, and squashes are known throughout this area, but maize is displaced from the position of first importance by manioc. Two species of this plant are used, one (Manihot utilissima) having a poisonous juice and the other (M. aipi) being harmless. Both plants, along with many other species of the same family, are said to grow wild in Brazil, and there is little doubt that domestication first took place in this area. A single technical process of extracting the poisonous juice of the favorite manioc is found wherever the plant is cultivated, and similar types of clay griddles are used in making the cassava cakes. . . .

While the general classification of tropical agriculture into arid highland and humid lowland types is hardly to be disputed, still there are

many domesticated plants that cannot be definitely ascribed to the one environment as opposed to the other. It seems likely that maize, beans, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes, malanga (Xanthosoma sagittifolium), etc., were originally of humid land origin. . . .

Among the Mandan of

The third type of agriculture was adapted to temperate conditions. It is most completely exemplified in the eastern half of the United States, but seems also to have been developed, though to a much less extent, in parts of the Argentine and Uruguayan pampas. Maize is again the staple, with beans and squashes as associated crops. North Dakota maize was modified to meet the conditions of a very short summer and ripen within sixty or seventy days of planting. Among the Iroquois agriculture was also brought to a high plane, especially when we consider that all the plants under cultivation were indigenous to the tropics

25. THE INFLUENCE OF THE HORSE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PLAINS CULTURE'

By CLARK WISSLER

One of the important problems pertaining to the Indians of the Plains is the relation of the European horse to their culture. The initial difficulty lies in our inability to determine the precise dates at which the successive tribes came into its possession.

The great Spanish expeditions to explore the southern parts of the United States were well equipped with horses and even cattle and hogs. The adventurers were cavaliers; hence, horses were a necessity. De Soto carried some of his horses across the Mississippi in 1541. At about the same time Coronado reached the present bounds of Oklahoma from Santa Fe. Oñate is believed to have visited the Pawnee and Kansas, 1599-1601, and Peñalosa conducted an expedition to the Mississippi in 1662. From Coronado's time on there was a growing trade with the Indians of the Gulf coast, and trade to the interior from Santa Fe as a base began about 1600. The pueblo village of Taos soon became the trade center for the Plains Indians. This trade seems to have reached its maximum about 1630. Doubtless the archives of Mexico and Spain contain data on the trade of this period, but nothing definite has so far found its way into literature. It is known, however, that the Indians of the Plains and especially the Pawnee were so troublesome in their plundering raids for horses that a post was established in Kansas about 1704 and an unsuccessful expedition undertaken by Villazur in 1720. Yet, in 1719 du Tisné, a Frenchman, visited two Pawnee villages in Oklahoma where he counted three hundred horses. As early as 1682 Henri de Tonty found horse-using Indians on the lower Missouri. La Salle also states (1682) that the Gattacka (Kiowa-Apache) and Manrhoat (Kiowa?) had many horses. In fact they found horses in many places. This is about the earliest date we can hope to find for the Missouri, but if the horses were there at that time, it is most certain that the Pawnee were well provided with them. It seems, therefore, safe to conclude that some time during the interval 1600-1682, at least, the Caddoan tribes, the Tonkawa, and the Comanche, as well as the Kiowa, became fully equipped with horses. The Metontonta

1 Extracted from the article of the same title, American Anthropologist, new series, volume 16, pages 1-25, 1914.

(Oto) came to see La Salle and brought a horse's hoof, stating that the Spanish made war upon them (1680). From the statements by Hennepin we infer that the Oto did not use horses at that time.

It is thus clear that the Indians below the Platte and lower Missouri were quite well supplied with horses by 1682, and there is no reason why many of them should not have had horses as early as 1600. Presumably those to get them first would be the Ute, Comanche, Apache, Kiowa, and the Caddo. As we move northward our historical data become a little more definite.

The sons of La Verendrye made a journey to the Rocky mountains from the Mandan in 1742-43. They encountered horse Indians, also mules and asses, and on their return to Canada mention the horses of their Assiniboine companions. On this journey to the Rocky mountains they seem to have passed down west of the Black hills and to have reached the mountains in Wyoming or Colorado and on the return trip to have struck the Missouri in Nebraska or South Dakota. They were in fear of the Snake Indians. So far we have not been able to fully identify the tribal names of these explorers, but Beaux Hommes seems likely to be Crow, and Gens de l'Arc to be Cheyenne. Their "Le Grand Chef" was evidently the chief of the Pawnee, and the Chevaux, the Comanche. They fell in with the Prairie Sioux on the return trip. On one point they are definite: that horses were in use all along their route after they left the Mandan country.

Next we turn to the journal of La Verendrye's Mandan discoveries, 1738-39. He set out from a camp of Cree on the Assiniboine river and made the journey overland with a body of the Assiniboine. It is clear that the whole party were afoot, for "the women and dogs carry all the baggage, the men are burdened only with their arms; they make the dogs even carry wood to make the fires, being often obliged to encamp in the open prairie, from which the clumps of wood may be at a great distance." No mention of seeing horses among the Mandan and the adjoining villages is made. On the other hand, we are told that the Indians gave him to understand that the Pananas and Pananis had horses like the whites," living to the south of them. One of his Assiniboine companions narrated an engagement with horsemen in armor while his party was in a raid to the Mississippi. Yet, in 1741, when the sons of La Verendrye set out toward the southwest, their statements seem to imply the possession of horses by the Mandan and the neighboring villages.

A little later (1751) Saint Pierre states that he saw horses and saddles which the Indians obtained by trade from the west, and notes a report from Fort Lajonquière in the Blackfoot country that the natives there traded for horses and saddles to the westward. This is the earliest suggestion of horses among the Blackfoot peoples.