The Sweet Potato: Its Origin and Dispersal1

Abstract

The sweet potato originated in northwestern South America, arising possibly as a hybrid cross or through karyotypic alterations from an unknown plant of the genus Ipomoea. This domestication is associated with the development of Tropical Forest agricultural villages by ca. 2500 B.C. The Spanish introduced it to Europe and spread it to China and Japan and Malaysia and the Moluccas region. The Portuguese carried it to India, Indonesia, and Africa. The plant has a pre‐Magellan introduction into Polynesia by possibly A.D. 1 in the Samoa area and is dispersed from there to the rest of the Pacific. The plant was transferred either by birds carrying the seed or, more likely, through an accidental casting of a vessel carrying it upon an island of the Samoa region. The word kumara, alleged by many to show direct contact between Polynesians and Quechuan‐speaking Indians, apparently reconstructs to Proto‐Polynesian and was introduced into the Quechua dictionaries to reflect the educated Spaniard's knowledge of sweet potato terms.

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