Zea Mays

L.

Corn (E); Cha (Cu); Joba (Cu); Maiz (S); Ob (Cu); Oba (Cu); Pe (Ch) .

In Darien lowlands, corn is less common than rice, but it is frequently found in the milpas. Green corn, cob and all, may be eaten after roasting or boiling. The husks have been used in preparing a paper, which, if ground fine enough, is so transparent, as to make a good substitute for glass. Corn oil is bland, pleasant tasting, ans slow to turn rancis. It can be turned into a good-quality soap. Pipes can be fashioned from the cobs, and the silks are cool smoking. Corn furnishes a nurishing astringent, resolvent food, and may be converted into starch for making bread, or fermented to make beer and alcohol. An American, fresh out of a high yielding American corn field, might be aghast to see the huge forest trees that are felled and partially burned to clear off an area for a lean crop of tough corn in Panama, hardly seeming worth the tremendous effort. In northern Central America, nearly all the corn grown is consumed as tortillas, made by treating the maiz with lye, grinding, mixing with water, and cooking briefly. Maya Indians let the corn dry on the stalk and then store it. Several dishes are prepared from it. masa mixed with lime and waater, boiled a few hours, cooled and washed. This is ground to form a dough, the masa; tortilla the masa is patted into a cake and baked in ashes; atole the masa is thinned with boiling water, and salt or sugar or honey is added to make a beverage; pozole boil the maiz in clear water after boiling in lime water; pour off the water and grind, mix with sugar, honey, or salt, then ball it up and take it to the field. Add water whenever hungry; pinole toast maiz on a griddle, add cinnamon, anise seed, and pepper, grind and boil in water.

Among the Bayano Cuna, corn is stored on a special shelf located directly above the fire site. The kernels are ground, the meal added to water and boiled. After cooling, the gruel (inaniquet) is drunk. It is sometimes mixed with sugarcane juice and ground cocoa (siva) to form a beverage known as cainisolicuagua. Corn and meat are boiled together yielding obsa. Even at the time of the conquest, the Darien Cuevas and the riverine Indians of the Gulf of Uraba called corn hobba. Still among the Cuna, oba is God of Creation and God of Corn. Indians often throw young corn on the cob in the pot. Ailigandi Cuna make a cornstick, long strings of native cornmeal dough, baked in ashes (!).

The cob, or opkala, is often used to plug up water jugs made of totumo. There are at least 22 ways of using corn in Colombia. Panamanian bushmen preparing for long journeys often take bollos of corn along with them. Catios of the Gulf of Uruba have quite a corn terminology based on pe, the Choco word for corn, peburua-ear of corn; pejansoa-corn cob; pejonumua-corn storage bin. Among the Chame Choco, pechare-dry corn; pesintu-cornplant.