Message #160341

[Autolocus]

ANOTHER SUGGESTED DERIVATION 53

Duchy of Ferrara, Italy, and a neighboring town or small state,
which presents grana de Brasill in a long list including wax, furs,
incense, indigo, and other merchandise. 5 The same curious
phrase, "grain of Brazil," recurs in a quite independent local
charta of the same country only five years later. Muratori,
who garnered such things into his famous compilation of Italian
antiquities, avowed his bewilderment over this strange phrase,
asking what dyewood could be so called; and Humboldt, recon-
sidering the whole matter, was no more clear in mind. He calls
attention to the fact that cochineal very long afterward bore the
same name, but evidently without considering this any sort of
solution, as, indeed, it could not well be, since it bears distinct
reference to the South American Brazil, which was discovered
and named centuries later. But the facts remain that grain does
not naturally mean dyewood of any kind or in any form, that
its recurrence in public documents proves it a well-established
characterization of a known article of trade in the twelfth
century, and that its presentation is such as to indicate a granular
packaged material.

Perhaps an explanation may be found in Marco Polo's experi-
ence and experiments nearly a century later than these Italian
documents. Of Lambri, a district in Sumatra, he writes:

They also have brazil in great quantities. This they sow, and when it
is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up and transplant
it; then they let it grow for three years, after which they tear it up by the
root. You must know that Messer Marco Polo aforesaid brought some
seed of the brazil, such as they sow, to Venice with him and had it sown
there, but never a thing came up. And I fancy it was because the climate
was too cold. 6

The seeds of that Sumatran shrub might well pass for grain
in the sense of a small granular object, as we say a grain of sand,
for example. But, since the plant was not and perhaps could not

*L. A. Muratori: Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, 6 vols., Milan, 1738-42;
reference in Vol. 2, pp. 891 and 894.

Sir Henry Yule: The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian Concerning the
Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, 3rd edit., revised ... by Henri Cordier, 2
vols., London, 1903 ; reference in Vol. 2, p.299. See also pp-306, 3i3,and3iS (note4).