# Indian Corn vs Indian Giver **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 28, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971 "2002-08-28T19:02:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Machiavelli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a698b9/32.png) [@Machiavelli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machiavelli)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2002, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/1 "2002-08-28T19:02:32Z")
Having recently gone back to drink from the firehose of Cecil’s wisdom in the archives, I’ve found something thats been bothering me a bit. In article [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1\_102.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_102.html) on Romans not having access to corn, Cecil says: \*“Indian corn,” as the plant is called now and then, is a more logical and precise name (at least if you’re willing to be tolerant about the “Indian” part). Better yet is “maize,” the term used by thinking botanists and by English-speaking peoples outside the Americas, where the word “corn” is already spoken for. Maize is, of course, a product of the New World. No historical evidence suggests that any European had encountered it before Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba. \* However, in article: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3\_253.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_253.html) Cecil states: \*This whole thing is so ironic it’s an instant cure for pernicious anemia. “Indian” was once used by the white man as an all-purpose adjective signifying “bogus” or “false,” owing to the supposedly low morals of the red man. Thus you had “Indian summer,” false summer late in the year; “Indian corn” and “Indian tea,” cheap substitutes for products the original colonists had known back in England; and “Indian giver,” someone who gives you something and then takes it back. \* I’m assuming the “indian corn” reference in the second column was added by mistake? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/2 "2002-08-29T02:07:38Z")
Maize was indeed considered a “cheap substitute” for the grain they could get back in England. They would have preferred wheat, but corn is easier to grow in New England. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/3 "2002-08-29T02:18:28Z")
And where do “Indian wrestling” and “Indian burns” fit into this? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/4 "2002-08-29T02:39:32Z")
_Indian burn_ appears in print only in 1956. _Indian wrestling_ appears in 1913, but the term that was used before it(1825 and later) was _Indian hug_\*. **DDG** is right on about Indian corn. Of course, we’ve just done a lot with _Indian Summer_ and I think the jury is still out on whether it was as deprecating as one always assumed. And, of course, _Indian giver_, while used disparagingly, was a misinterprtation of an Indian custom. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2002, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/5 "2002-08-29T17:44:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by samclem \* > \*\*And, of course, _Indian giver_, while used disparagingly, was a misinterpr[e]tation of an Indian custom. \*\* Really? Which tribe? What was the original custom? ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/6 "2002-08-30T02:48:26Z")
[http://www.word-detective.com/back-z.html#indian](http://www.word-detective.com/back-z.html#indian) I doubt that anyone in the 20th Century would think that an “Indian Giver” expected a greater gift in return. They just wanted their gift back. Right? That’s what it has come to mean the last two hundred years. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/7 "2002-08-30T13:16:29Z")
Well, I don’t know about that link, **samclem**. After all, right below is his take on “Kemosabe”, where he says, > [@](#): > > According to the New York Public Library Book of Answers (Prentice Hall, 1990), what Tonto meant by “kemosabe” was “faithful friend.” I don’t know exactly where the NYPL got their information, but it always struck me that it was Tonto himself, not the Lone Ranger, who was the “faithful friend,” having to save the Ranger’s > bacon nearly every week. As well as bringing up the “soggy shrub” theory. But everybody here knows the truth; after all, Cecil gave us the answer. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4\_061.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_061.html) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/indian-corn-vs-indian-giver/125971/8 "2002-08-30T20:56:45Z")
**Irishman**. While I agree that Evan’s answer to the kemosabe question was poor and Cecil’s answer was very well done, I don’t agree that it invalidates the answer about “Indian Giver.” Evan probably got it right, and the reason I think so is that I read quite a bit about it while researching “Indian Summer” in the last few weeks. My Mathews, _Dictionary of Americanisms_ offers the following: **Indian gift** - 1764 Hutchinson _Hist. Mass._ I. 469 An Indian gift is a proverbial expression, signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected. He quotes it also from 1848 **Bartlett** 189 _Indian Giver_. When an Indian gives anything, he expects an equivalent in return, or that the same thing may be given back to him. This term is applied by children in New York and the vicinity to a child who, after haveing given away a thing, wishes to have it back again. I’ll admit that the above don’t nail the phrase to a specific tribe, and there is wiggle room about the origin of the phrase. I can’t believe I have to now go reading about kemosabe. Thanks a heep!