In keeping with the Earth Day theme, I present to you a story from the Aniyunwia (Cherokee) people about the origins of agriculture.
This the story of Selu, the Corn Mother:
Once upon a time in Cherokee Country, there was a woman who would present people with helpings of corn.
Unlike me, they enjoyed it.
One day, some people wanted to know where the corn came from, so they stealthily followed the woman...and saw her picking boils and pustules off her body, which became the corn she had provided!
Grossed out? So were they!
So much so that they refused to eat this corn ever again.
And so, the woman told the people to bury her into the ground.
As they did so, the first cornfields sprouted from the woman's grave.
That is how the Aniynwia (Cherokee) learned to farm the land.
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