Vinnapu, and by some of the neighbouring tribes, Soro. From its intoxicating effects, its use was prohibited by the Incas, who made it a penal offence with all who drank to excess.
Francisco Saverio Clavigero, in describing the grain of Mexico, says, “The chief, the most useful, and most common, was the maize, called by the Indians Tluolli, of which there are several varieties, differing in size, colour, weight, and taste. There is the large and the small sort, the white, the yellow, the blue, and the black.”
Captain John Smith, in his account of the Indians of Virginia, says, “The greatest labour they take, is in planting their corne, for the country naturally is overgrowne with wood. To prepare the ground, they bruise the barke of the trees neare the root, then doe they scortch the roots with fire that they grow no more. The next yeare with a crooked peece of wood they beat vp the weeds by the rootes, and in that mould they plant their corne. Their manner is this. They make a hole in the earth with a sticke, and into it they put foure graines of wheate (maize), and two of beanes. These holes they make foure foote one from another. Their women and children do continually keepe it with weeding, and when it is growne middle high, they hill it about like a hop-yard. In Aprill they begin to plant, but their chiefe plantation is in May, and so they continue till the midst of Iune. What they plant in Aprill, they reape in August: for May in September; for Iune in October. Every stalke of their corne commonly beareth two eares, some three, seldome any foure, many but one, and some none. Every eare ordinarily hath betwixt 200 and 500 graines. The stalke being greene hath a sweet iuice in it, somewhat like sugar-cane, which is the cause that when they gather their corne greene, they sucke the stalkes; for as we gather greene pease, so doe they their corne, being greene, which excelleth their old. * * * * * Their corne they rost in the eare greene, and bruising it in morter
