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Recommended: Essay on maize growing
For Mexicans, maize is not a crop, but a deep cultural symbol for daily life. Maize is now grown all over the world. Corn is commonly found in the United States in comparison to the shapes, sizes, and colors of the traditional maize varieties by the people of Mexico. Statistics show that, according to the website, calstatela.edu, The United States purchases over 70% of Mexico’s agricultural exports. Corn may length from a couple of inches to a foot long, in colors that include yellow, red, white, brown, blue, and black. Corn is attached to the daily lives of the peasants and indigenous people of Mexico. As the basic grain, it shapes daily meals, and it’s growing cycle influences the timing of festivals and holiday events. In addition, Corn
is also an easy crop to plant. The image and shape of corn is an element of agriculture. Spiritually, physically, and economically, corn sustains native people. Corn can also be associated for survival during rough and tragic times.
In the article "Sacred Sustenance: Maize, Storytelling, and a Mayan Sense of Place," the author, Leah Alexandra Huff, is arguing that Ethnographers should pay more attention to stories because they allow for a deeper understanding of cultures. To support her argument, she uses the example of the significance of maize in the Mayan civilization as well as their sense of place. Huff first describes the importance of place in building and maintaining a community and developing it identity. She explains that place was important for indigenous communities such as the Mayans because land was part of their cultural and spiritual systems. Huff then goes on to detail the importance of storytelling. She argues that storytelling helps create identity,
When the Spanish migrated to the Americas during the colonial period, they had a particular food preference and attachment to wheat bread. Elite whites looked at corn as an uncivilized product, but the people of Mexico also remained hesitant to growing wheat. The introduction of wheat in Mexico began to be prepared as tortillas, since this was what the native women knew best to do. This tortilla discourse, as explained by Pilcher, “correctly recognized maize as the root of self-supporting communal life, and this a barrier to modernization, although for cultural rather than nutritional reasons. Nevertheless, the ultimate incorporation of peasants into the national economy came not through the elimination of corn, but rather through its commodification”
Tradition has been said to mirror a way of life. Observation has concluded that participants in tradition “actively construct as well as reflect culture and community” (Sacks 275). For most people in the 21st century, tradition only reveals itself during special times or certain seasons. For others it is simply a way of life. The foodways of Mexicans and Native Americans are of particular interest in this study because of the food that grew from necessity and is maintained as sacred or reserved for only special occasions. The tamale is one such food. Significantly changed and altered throughout history it has remained a food of commonality and prestige at the same time. The tamale represents a nation that thrived as a people and has continued to live on through the traditions created hundreds of years ago by women who strive to better their community, their men, and the general way of life and welfare of their people. Native American people are the backdrop of southwestern history and as such we often look to them for answers regarding the past. The ‘past’ provides acts as vault filled with a wealth of information concerning a great number of cultural artifacts.
Cumbia serves as a unifier of Mexican people, especially families, and serves as a sociocultural outlet for celebration and upholds cultural traditions. A main theme of Mexican culture is togetherness of the family, and many celebrations create a community and place for family involvement. Celebrating together creates and maintains bonds and is an outlet for expression sharing commonalities such as cultural thoughts and ideas. Solidifying a connection in the community with people that listen to cumbia strengthens the culture and forms unity. Mexican cumbia is a significant aspect of Mexican identity and produces a gateway environment for embracing heritage and reflects a highly family and community oriented culture.
Taking a deeper look at the meaning behind food through the eyes of traditional societies reveals nothing more than absolute complexity. Sam Gill, in Native American Religions, indisputably shows the complexity through detailed performances and explanations of sacred ceremonies held among numerous traditional societies. Ultimately, Gill explains that these societies handle their food (that gives them life), the source in which the good is obtained, and the way they go about getting their food are done in extreme symbolic manners that reflect their cosmology, religious beliefs, actions, and respect for ancestors/spirits that live among them. All of which are complexly intertwined. These aspects are demonstrated through the hunting traditions of the Alaskan Eskimo and the agricultural traditions of the Creek.
Coming from a mexican culture, I am blessed to have a rich variety of traditional delicious home made recipes. Most people my age always salivate to the idea of their grandmothers making that amazing dinner. Mostly all americans can agree on the superb taste of the mexican food, and one of my favorites and most traditional of them all is the famous “Mole sauce”. It is made on special occasions such as birthdays, christmas, new years, and teenagers first communion at the church. This complex dark red spicy/sweet sauce has a legend behind its creation. It is believed in the mexican culture that it was made for the first time at the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla early in the colonial period. The convent nuns went into panic one day as they found out the archbishop was paying them a visit and they had nothing to prepare for him due to lack of wealth. The nuns prayed and put together the scraps of ingredients that they had left including chilli peppers, day old bread, nuts, some chocolate and spices. After they killed a turkey, cooked it and served it with the sauce on top, the archbishop fell in love with the dish. They asked the nuns about the dish and they responded truthfully with “I made a Mole” which is the anctient word for mix in spanish. There is also a few variations of this sauce within the mexican community, but the one I will be instructing you how to make is the traditional recipe that my grandmother learned from her grandmother; Mole poblano.
The Popol Vuh doesn’t fall short in referencing and glorifying maize. One such reference in the Popol Vuh categorizes maize as a way to determine fate; if an ear of maize is planted and dries up, it indicates death. The article, “The Flowering of the Dead” concludes, “In Atiteco religion, ‘Flowering Mountain Earth’ is a place at the world’s centre whose primary manifestation is a maize plant or tree.” (Carlsen 27). A “Flowering Mountain Earth” is the center of the world that represents life, beauty, and the gods. Among this place, maize is an important object that animates and projects the qualities of a Flowering Mountain Earth. Maize is axis mundi, the center of the world. It is a staple crop in the Maya people; it is essential to the people and heavily relied on. The Maya saw maize as a fetish that truly gave them everything. Without it, everything that ties the Maya together falls apart. Successful growth of maize represents the life and well-being of the Maya, while a dying maize plant all but points to death and the failure of civilization. It is with the importance of maize in Maya culture, that it is omnipresent throughout the Popol
I am familiar with both the Mexican culture and the regular American Culture. Those two cultures aren’t alike. Mexicans celebrate different holidays. In American culture, we celebrate 4th of July because of the declaration of independence. But in Mexican culture, we also celebrate Independence Day but on the 16th of September, because we won the war against the Spaniards. Also, in American culture we celebrate the holiday that all kids love, Halloween on October 31st. Halloween is a day to go trick-or-treating and have fun. In Mexico, we celebrate “El Día De Los Muertos “(Day of The Dead) on November 1st. Day of the dead is a day where we remember all the people that have died and that holiday is in honor of them. Mexicans also celebrate “El Día De Los Reyes Magos” also known as “Day Of The Three Wise Men”. This day is celebrated for the day that the three wise men took each 1 gift to the Virgin Mary’s son. Columbus Day is a holiday that is celebrated in both American and Mexican culture. But besides the holidays, Mexican food is different from the all American food that is seen everyday. From pozole, tacos, quesadillas, and so many other foods, the cultures aren’t the same.
Culture is customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. It includes behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, values, and norms that is shared by a group of people to sustain their lives. Mexican culture is influenced by their familial ties, gender, religion, location and social class, among other factors. Today life in the cities of Mexico has become similar to that in neighboring United States and Europe, with provincial people conserving traditions more so than the Mexican living in the city. In the United States Mexican includes any person of Puerto
Jeffrey Pilcher declares that Mexicans are a people of corn, that “despite centuries of efforts to change them, Mexicans remain a people of corn” (Pilcher, 6). The native and indigenous people of corn formed identity as a society. They made tortillas with corn, and gradually began to add different kinds of meats, vegetables, and spices. Every society creates for themselves a unique set of cuisine to feed and please others. But people’s needs constantly change and the diet that is established for each society is divided through class. Besides this being a harsh reality, this is problematic because of the disparity between the rich and the poor. But even though this was the case, Mexico’s food culture was able to preserve and refine a lot of its cuisine despite evolution and struggles to maintain original forms. Thus, it can be said that the history of food in Mexico is one that is profoundly and intimately tied to the country’s developing national
The most important idea in Allen J. Christenson's Popol Vuh is maize or often known as corn but to the Maya culture, corn has a bigger significance than just food. Corn has played a important role in empires, civilizations and people for thousands of years. The Maya have a lot of admiration to corn as a cornerstone of their culture and spirituality. Maize was so highly admired that the Mayans had a Maize God. Corn was a gift from the Gods and cultivating it and planting it was a sacred duty it was a really important process in which corn was to be planted and harvested. Temples were built for Maize Gods and corn was used to nourish workers and kings. To the Mayans, the Gods made humankind out of maize. The Maya also considered this crop to be the vegetation of life in order to eat and grow. This symbolized the fragile nature of corn, a crop that depends entirely on human cultivation for its reproduction with such deep meaning and that has deep culture and meaning.
Folklore is a collection of stories passed down from generation to generation that includes Legends, Myths and Fairy tales. Legends are a semi-true story, which has been passed on from a person to another person that has an important meaning. Myths are a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon. A Fairytale is a children's story about magical which they have imaginary beings and lands. Hispanic Folklore is the traditional is mostly about beliefs, legends, customs and stories of the community of the hispanic culture. Hispanic or latino culture encompasses the traditions, language, religious beliefs and practices, legends, music and history.
I come from a Mexican family of four. My brother and I were raised as Mexican Americans. As my parents’ only daughter, their teachings has made me who I am today. In this class I have evaluated my relationship with my family. I learned how their culture has influenced my upbringing, what type of relationship we have and how to communicate properly.
Dr. Carol Cornelius, an Oneida educator, shares a Tuscarora story The Legend of Onenha (the corn) in Iroquois Corn: In a Culture-Based Curriculum (1999). In this story,
In Mayan culture, “ chia” means “strength”. Chia seeds are reported to date back to 3500 B.C. when they served as an essential nutritional component to the Aztecs. The Aztecs held the belief that the seeds were able to deliver supernatural abilities to those that consumed. This concept may be partially true if one were to consider the amount of energy offered by the Chia seeds as “supernatural abilities”. Later on, between 1500 and 900 B.C., the Teotihuacan and Toltec people of Mexico began growing the seed in their homelands. Currently, the seeds are grown mostly in South America from the plant Salvia Hispanica. Chia Seeds boast a number of health benefits. In two tablespoons (one ounce), 4 grams of protein and 9 grams of fat (5 of which