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Cultural Information

These plant stories actually penetrate what we normally think of as a hunting area in the Americas. The North American culture is a very strong example of the interaction of hunting and planting cultures. The Indians were chiefly hunters, but they were also growing maize. One Algonquin story about the origin of maize tells of a boy who has a vision. In this vision, he sees a young man who comes to him with green plumes on his head and who invites the boy to a wrestling match. He wins and comes again and wins again, and so on. But one day the young man tells the boy that next time the boy must kill him and bury him and take care of the place where he has been buried. The boy then does what he has been told to do, and kills and buries the beautiful youth. In time, the boy returns and sees the corn growing where the plumed young man has been buried, or planted, you might say.

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The story is that there were people down in the depths who weren't yet really people, who didn't even know they were people. One of them breaks a taboo that nobody knew was a taboo, and the floodwaters begin coming in. They have to ascend, to get out by a rope through the hole in the ceiling of the world -- and then they are in another world. In one story, the shamans become aggressive in their thinking and insult the sun and moon, which then disappear, so everybody is in the dark.

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