Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)

Gunda, Béla: Origin of plant cultivation in the New World

of a Rumex species in the humid soil. The Paiute tribe tried to propagate some wild plants by watering them, although these Indians knew none of the forms of systematic plant cultivation. In Nixon village, Nevada Desert, the Paiute Indians said that they were formerly engaged only in hunting and plant gathering. During their wanderings they carried with them the seeds of the Indian millet (Oryzopsis hymenoides) and other plants and scattered them around their provisional camping grounds. When they returned the next year, could gather more of the Indian millet. For similar purposes the seeds of the Indian millet were also sown by the Navajo Indians around their encampments during their wanderings. The Skagit Indians gather the bulb of Lilium columbianum. If they do not need the bulb, they mark with a stake the place where the lily grows and so they will find the bulbs even when the flowers and leaves are withered. They also burn up the fields for improving the growth of the bulbs. Since they think that the bulbs are developing from the leaves, they bury the leaves into the ground after the bulbs have been dug out, in order to improve the development of the lilies. Motives of primitive plant cultivation can be observed in the gathering of wild rice in Canada. The Ojibwa Indians pack some seed of wild rice into mud and throw them into the water in order to improve the rice harvest of next year. Other Indian tribes also scatter the rice occasionally without doing anything else for its further cultivation. The Cahita Indians (Mexico) sometimes replant the agave near their living quarters without any systematic care of the plants. We also know about some activities of the Hopi Indians which can be regarded as a starting point of plant cultivation. Though carefully tilling the soil, the Hopis do not root out certain wild plants. So they let every year Amaranthus cruentus yield seeds on the irrigated fields. They also leave the ripe seeds of Cleoma serrula be scattered all over the corn field, because they gather the young plant next spring and cook it. They equally tolerate a wild potato sort (Solanum Jamesii) on the corn fields and use its abundant yield as food. The fruit of the cactus Sahuaro (Carnegiea gigantea) plays a major role in the household of the Papago Indians. They pull the fruit from the top of the branches by means of a crook. Every family had a permanent encampment, near the cactus fields. The Papago Indians told me that they cut out the useless shrubs around a well developed cactus near their encampment so as to improve its development and increase its yield. We could keep on reciting the examples, but the aforesaid seems to be sufficient evidence for the fact that the Indians have preserved up to the present day a sort of ethnobotanical activity which is the first step towards plant cultivation. Thousands of years ago the cultivation of pumkins, corn, beans, tomato and other domesticated plants was probably started in a similar way. As a matter of fact, the first step towards plant cultivation is also the result of many years of experience. Of course, not every Indian has adequate experiences and the proper scope of knowledge. M.R. GILMORE writes about the Missouri Indians that every tribe has plant specialists, "primitive professors" of botany who frequently visit the habitat of the different plants and share with the others their knowledge on the plants, their range, the way and