cassavatree

Updated: May 16, 2025

Thus, in the lower level were to be found the cassavatree and the banana, that bountiful plant, which seems to have relieved man from the primeval curse if it were not rather a blessing of toiling for his sustenance.27 As the banana faded from the landscape, a good substitute was found in the maize, the great agricultural staple of both the northern and southern divisions of the American continent; and which, after its exportation to the Old World, spread so rapidly there, as to suggest the idea of its being indigenous to it.28 The Peruvians were well acquainted with the different modes of preparing this useful vegetable, though it seems they did not use it for bread, except at festivals; and they extracted a sort of honey from the stalk, and made an intoxicating liquor from the fermented grain, to which, like the Aztecs, they were immoderately addicted.29

William Hickling Prescott - History of the Conquest of Peru