Corn Mother

Corn Mother, mythological figure believed, among indigenous agricultural tribes in North America, to be responsible for the origin of corn (maize). The story of the Corn Mother is related in two main versions with many variations.

In the first version (the “immolation version”), the Corn Mother is depicted as an old woman who succors a hungry tribe, frequently adopting an orphan as a foster child. She secretly produces grains of corn by rubbing her body. When her secret is discovered, the people, disgusted by her means of producing the food, accuse her of witchcraft. Before being killed—by some accounts with her consent—she gives careful instructions on how to treat her corpse. Corn sprouts from the places over which her body is dragged or, by other accounts, from her corpse or burial site.

In the second version (the “flight version”), she is depicted as a young, beautiful woman who marries a man whose tribe is suffering from hunger. She secretly produces corn, also, in this version, by means that are considered to be disgusting; she is discovered and insulted by her in-laws. Fleeing the tribe, she returns to her divine home; her husband follows her, and she gives him seed corn and detailed instructions for its cultivation.

Similar Native American traditions of the immolation of a maternal figure or the insult to and flight of a beautiful maiden are told to account for the origin of the buffalo, peyote, certain medicinal herbs, and the sacred pipe.