The Origin of Corn
A story of divine twins and the gift of corn, tying sustenance and care to familial love.
In the beginning, Sky Woman fell from the sky, landing upon the back of a great turtle. From her presence the earth grew, soil spread, and plants began to flourish. She bore a daughter, who in time gave birth to twin sons: Sapling and Flint.
The twins were opposites, yet bound together. Sapling shaped rivers gently, Flint gouged mountains sharply. Sapling created gentle deer, Flint made predators with teeth. Where Sapling sought balance, Flint brought strife. The world held both, for without struggle, harmony could not be known.
When Sky Woman’s daughter died giving them birth, she was buried in the earth. From her body grew sacred plants: beans, squash, and most of all, corn. Her flesh became nourishment, her spirit remained in the stalks that fed her descendants.
Thus corn came as a gift of love, born of loss. Sapling taught the people how to tend it: how to plant the kernels in mounds, how to let beans climb the stalks and squash cover the roots, the Three Sisters growing together in harmony. Flint, jealous, tried to blight the plants with frost and stones, but still they endured, for Sapling’s gift was stronger.
The people received corn not only as food but as a sacred bond to the earth. Each harvest was an act of gratitude, each meal a prayer. Mothers told their children that corn was their grandmother’s body, her love made manifest, so that none would forget the sacrifice that sustained them.
So the Haudenosaunee told the tale: that corn is not merely grain, but kin. It is the flesh of Sky Woman’s line, the gift of the good twin, and the reminder that from sorrow can grow sustenance, from death can grow life.
To this day, when corn is roasted at fires or woven into husk dolls, the people remember the story. They honor corn not only as food but as family, a bond tying them to the first beings and the circle of creation itself.
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