The Corn Myth Summary

The corn myth tells the story of how corn began to be cultivated by Native Americans in North America. It all began when a young maiden appeared from nowhere and married a young man from a Native American tribe called Penobscot. She later fell in love with another, this lover turned out to be a snake. She was undoubtedly discovered by her husband and in an effort to help him get over the fact that she cheated on him, she told him to “plant a blade of grass clinging to her ankle.” (page 72, para 2) She feels like she needs to redeem herself and the only way she feels that she can obtain this objective is by giving him instructions on how to kill her. She tells him to kill her with an axe and drag her body around a field and once he was down with that, to bury her body in the center of the field. Once he had finished this strange task, she came to him in a dream and taught him how to maintain corn and tobacco.
The young maiden gave her husband the

They did not take land unless needed and did not use labor as a way to obtain profit. When it came to nature, there was a fine boundary between abusing for their own benefit and using land to survive harsh living conditions. They did not know what greed was and shared the land with everyone in the community, this was known as common land. Common land was a piece of land that everyone was allowed to use but with this benefit, those who used it also had to follow the rules of the land. They often followed the rules of the land and also kept each other on check. For example, when they had sheep in this land, they were only allowed to bring in a certain number. If they saw another person with a number bigger than that in which was allowed, it would be up to that person to take action. The land was for everyone and if one person was selfish than it would affect the ratios of everyone in the