THE SEED OF SEEDS
by
Platt Cline

"The seed of seeds" (a'-ta-a) is the name given by the Zunis to maize (Zea mays), the gigantic grass upon which the cultures of the aboriginal farmers of the Americas were based. The great Mayan civilization of Central America was so directly dependent upon the cultivation of maize that they gave it the distinction of being considered a gift direct from the gods to man. Being of such great importance to the primitive American farmers, it would naturally become intertwined with religious rites and ceremonies, and we find that the god of corn surpassed in importance even these of war and rain.

The fact that maize, or as we shall call it in this article, "corn," was divine, was so evident to these Indians that a wild grass growing in Northern Mexico, having many of the characteristics of corn, was named by the Aztecs "teo-centli", meaning "god-grass", and was supposed to refer to the sacred origin of corn. This suggests that the Indians sensed a connection between corn and some of these relatives. However, botanists have been unable to trace the development of corn from whatever wild ancestor it had. It is so unlike its closest relatives that we may doubt the possibilities of man having developed it from these other forms of the same family. But we do know that it could not have grown wild in the form we know it today, because it cannot grow without assistance from man. Other grains will sow themselves and continue for several generations, but corn will not. If an ear of corn should fall accidently from the stalk, and accidently become covered with soil, and even do so much as to germinate, the young plants would choke each other to death long before they could grow enough to produce a new generation of seed.

Whatever its origins, we may safely say that it has been cultivated in the form we have today for an extremely long period of time. Because of the fact that all of the close relatives of corn growing wild are found in Mexico and Central America, we may suppose that it was developed in that region, and from there spread throughout the Americas and that long before the coming of the Europeans.

Even in the very oldest burials on the American continents, corn is found, almost exactly like that in use today. Kempton¹ says: "....the botanist is forced to hypothesize for American plants an exceptionally long past, beginning far earlier than 10,000 years ago, which is the date assigned to the beginning of tillage in the old World.... From purely botanical reasoning, based on a detailed comparison of maize to its wild relatives, Indian corn may confidently be proclaimed the most ancient of the cultivated cereals, if not of all cultivated plants."

1. J.H. Kempton. Maize, the plant-breeding achievement of the American Indian. Old and New Plant Lore, Smithsonian Scientific Series, Vol. 11. Smithsonian Institution Series, Inc. 1931. p. 324.

Disregarding the origin of this amazing grass, a problem for the botanist, we can say that it was developed many hundreds of years ago into the perfected form we have today, and without doubt man played a very important part in its history.

This man-made plant is so ideally suited for cultivation that wherever known it has immediately become one of the most important food-stuffs. Known only in America before the invasion of the New World by Europeans, it has spread so rapidly and so far over the face of the earth that today we find it under cultivation in every clime, by every race and color.

At some very early time, at least 2500 years ago, it was introduced into the Southwest. That long ago, the earliest people in the Mesa Verde, of whom we have any knowledge, the early Basketmakers, were cultivating as perfect corn as we have at the present. In the collection of Basket-maker material in the museum in the Park, there are forty ears of corn, similar to that raised by the Indians of the Southwest today.

We know that the cliff-dwellers who once inhabited the cliff caves in Mesa Verde raised corn, a very hardy variety, suited to dry-land methods of farming. The most suitable spots in the area for cultivation were the patches of rich, red soil found in little glades here and there on the mesa tops. As irrigation was impossible, their corn must have of necessity been hardy enough to thrive on relatively slight rainfall, and survive semi-drought years.

Visitors often question the possibility of raising corn on the mesas, where there is so little moisture. More to prove that cliff-dwellers could and did raise corn, than anything else, a small patch covering about two acres, was fenced off seven years ago, and seed, obtained from the Navajo and Pueblo Indians, has been planted. During the seven years that we have been raising corn in this patch, there has been only one failure, and that was only partial. The yield compares very favorably with the harvests in the dry-farming districts in the Montezuma Valley just north of the Park. The seed is carefully selected each year, in an attempt to finally produce a seed that will be ideally suited to this area. The remaining ears, after seed selection, are braided into long, colorful strings, and used for decorative purposes in the various buildings in the Park.

In normal years, the ears average from seven to ten inches in length, and in the one year of partial failure they averaged from three to five inches. The seed is planted in the Indian way by the Navajo employees, and is cultivated by them. About ten kernels are planted in a hill. After the stalks grow from to two feet in height, the "suckers" are pulled out, and even some of the stalks, if too many grow. The plot is weeded at regular intervals, to help the corn obtain all the moisture possible. After the corn is fully matured, it is harvested by the Navajos, about the end of October.

Corn, the perfect plant, which can be adapted to almost any soil and climate, and is so highly important not only to the Indians, but to ourselves, is truly "the seed of seeds". It is the foremost of many food-plants for which we are indebted to the American Indian.

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The Society of American Archeology has been formed to co-ordinate the work of the amateur and professional in American Archeology. Dues are three ($3.00) dollars a year and include a subscription for the quarterly journal. Dr. Carl E. Guthe, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan is the Secretary-Treasurer and he will be glad to give additional information.

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