Corn spirit

“ In these customs, observed both on the harvest-field and on the threshing-floor, a passing stranger is regarded as a personification of the corn, in other words, as the corn-spirit; and a show is made of treating him like the corn by mowing, binding, and threshing him. If the reader still doubts whether European peasants can really regard a passing stranger in this light, the following custom should set his doubts at rest. ”

“ The ripening of the grain, that too was a wonder to them—and should it not be to us?—how the corn and wheat which is put into the ground and dies should rise again, and then ripen into golden corn? That too must be the work of some kindly spirit, who loved men ”

“ If you plant corn in the field, and that corn is rooted out of the ground, it perishes, and don't produce anything. Receive the word and treasure it up in your hearts, and then you shall continue to receive the word of life, here a little and there a little; and you shall grow, and increase, and multiply, and no good thing shall be withheld from you. ”

“ The green corn is considered a great luxury by all those tribes who cultivate it; and is ready for eating as soon as the ear is of full size, and the kernels are expanded to their full growth, but are yet soft and pulpy. In this green state of the corn, it is boiled and dealt out in great profusion to the whole tribe, who feast and surfeit upon it whilst it lasts; rendering thanks to the Great Spirit for the return of this joyful season, which they do by making sacrifices, by dancing, and singing songs or thanksgiving. ”

“ Deities of the Tammuz type appear to symbolize the corn-grain and nothing more—cut down, bruised and beaten, buried in the earth, and finally springing to renewed life. Who, then, are the goddesses, likewise identified with the corn, who seek in the underworld for lover or child, endeavouring with tears to ransom the corn from the dark earth? Are they not the primitive corn-spirits, the indwelling animistic spirits of the standing grain, doomed at the harvest to wander disconsolately through the earth till the sprouting of the corn once more gives them an opportunity to materialize? ”

“ They were the younger sisters of the corn; they grew with the corn and twined about it. Now, every man who was a handful or two short of his crop began to look at us doubtfully. Then they would crowd around the Cacique of the Sun to argue the matter. They remembered how our Shaman had gone apart to pray to her own gods and they thought the Spirit of the Corn might have been offended. ”

“ Again, the identification of the victim with the corn, in other words, the view that he is an embodiment or spirit of the corn, is brought out in the pains which seem to be taken to secure a physical correspondence between him and the natural object which he embodies or represents. ”