Corn has been a big topic in the news. The proliferation of high fructose corn syrup almost all processed food products is blamed for the high presence of Type 2 diabetes, which is the type that develops in response to overall health conditions as opposed to being a chronic disease from birth. This has further incited debates about wealth and class, because items without high fructose corn syrup or other preservatives, such as whole, organic foods, are more expensive, thus topping the lists of various government assistance programs and corporate promotions. This issue was further enhanced with sociological studies, such as the books Fast Food Nation or Fat Nation, which connect the high fructose corn syrup phenomenon with cheap food. Morgan Spurlock tested this theory in his documentary, Super-Size Me, in which he ate at McDonalds three times a day for thirty days. After this short period, he noticed a significant overall health decline. Unnoticed and overlooked in the major discussions are the populations who initially cultivated corn in the Americas. The Native American population as a whole has faced overwhelming numbers of Type 2 diabetes within its population (Olson 163).
The relationship between corn and Native American populations has shifted over the years from an explanation of cosmology to a harbinger of disease. Looking at Native American mythologies and collected stories, especially from the southwestern United States and Mexico, emphasizes the sacred relationship to corn. The limitations of this paper prevent an in depth analysis of mythologies, so the focus is limited to the Navajo, Aztecs, and Mayans. Furthermore, these limitations prevent an in depth exploration of corn’s relationship to disease. It is therefore my intent to present one way of understanding corn in order to awaken questions pertaining to its current status. Other avenues have explored diabetes awareness and treatment in Native American and non-Native communities.
The primary problem with this exploration arises regarding the mythology. The Native American tradition is based on oral storytelling, which implies that there is no definitive, single version of a myth. Researches and anthropologists have tried for decades to collect and compile the stories, recognizing a need to do so before the Native American tradition, and population, passes into extinction. Authenticity is questioned, because the research subject may have intentionally shared an inaccurate version of the story to avoid sharing scared tradition with an outsider, which is later accepted as truth by non-Native American groups, especially researchers, students and scholastic communities. Therefore, with this caveat in mind, I am researching corn origins with the understanding that my sources are a few of many, and not definitive.
The second consideration to this exploration is the concept of the “floating gap.” This refers to the gap between mythological and archaeological time. For example, the floating gap is the span of time between the mythological appearance of corn in the cosmology and the first archaeological cultivation of corn. I suggest that there is another level to the floating gap, which involves the gap between the end of a civilization and the apparent “death” of the myth, reflected in the time between the European invasion and the religious shift among Native peoples. This gap helps elucidate the shift of corn from sacred to profane, by reflecting the cultural shifts that always follow foreign overthrow. Like the floating gap between mythical and archaeological time, this modern gap also has a slow onset. One could even suggest that this is a symptom or side-effect of the dissolution of the oral tradition.
Regardless of perspective, corn is grown, distributed and eaten. It plays the role of the ‘’staple crop” for several agriculture-based Native American tribes, and factors prominently in their mythologies. Due to the limitations of this paper, I can only look at a few aspects of corn mythology: corn and the creation of humans, corn and the principles of death and resurrection, and corn as axis mundi. As stated above, I am limiting my inquiry to the selected mythologies of the Mayans, Aztecs, and Navajo, though this list is not meant to be all-inclusive. All of these tribes share a degree of sedentary behavior linked with their adherence to agriculture. This is not meant to suggest that the Plains tribes, or other nomadic tribes, are any less important or “civilized,” but, rather, to link the development of Native American agriculture with modern United States infrastructure and its reliance on corn as a staple crop.
Corn and the Origins of Humans
Both the Mayan and Navajo traditions link corn with the creation of humanity: In the Popol Vuh, it tells us that the Bearer, Begetter, the Maker, Modelers were contemplating how to make human flesh. Their attention was drawn to the Split Place by four animals, which is where white and yellow corn plants are from.
And these were the ingredients for the flesh of the human work, the human design and the water was for the blood. It became human blood, and corn was also used by the Bearer, Begetter. … And then the yellow corn and white corn were ground and Xmucane did the grinding nine times. Food was used, along with the water she rinsed her hands with, for the creation of grease; it became human fat when it was worked by the Bearer, Begetter, Sovereign Plumed Serpent, as they are called. After that, they put it into words:
The making, the modeling of our first mother-father,
with yellow corn, white corn alone for the flesh,
food alone for the human legs and arms,
for our first fathers, the four human works.
It was staples alone that made up their flesh. (Tedlock 146)