The Native American’s Corn Sprouting Goddess of Agriculture and Renewal

The native American tribes have some beautiful creation myths, from the spider who stitches together the webs of time, to the turtle that carries the soil on its back for us to live. But, my favorite by far will always be the Corn Mother. It’s a tale who’s lessons are still tangibly valid today: the fear of those different than ourselves, the dangers and loss so often caused by acting in that fear, and being able to step above that and in love, sacrifice for the greater good. I’ve read like 15 different versions of it this week so I’m sure this is a horrible mish mash of different tellings but the general gist is this

• She’s a beautiful native woman, with corn sprouting from her head, or hair, or hands, or entirely made of corn
• She gives birth to two sons, who are always hungry (in some tellings, its a whole hungry village)
• Every day she sneaks away returning with a bowl of corn to feed the hungry with
• Eventually, her sons, her husband or someone from the village sneakily follows her and sees that she is actually feeding them with parts of her body
• As some are immediately disgusted with the practice, in a great example of “group think”, it’s decided that she must be killed immediately
• Before she is sacrificed, she begs for the good of her people that they follow very specific instructions and drag her dead body along the ground and bury her bones in a separate pile and return seven months later
• Seven months later and every seven months from that point on, the fields are filled with fruitful corn plants to feed her people and where her bones once laid, a new plant, tobacco, grew to clear their minds

 
So there you have it. You’ve got two weeks to make us a Corn Mother! (get em in by Midnight the night of the 22nd please). I’ll use that time to claim us a suitable judge. So make us proud, or ashamed, or just laugh… you know how it works, just draw, I promise, it’ll make your week better!!!



Our judge this battle was Ken Coulman, longtime bud, graphic design enthusiast, hand letterer, beer brewer, motorbiker, fern fan etc …he’s been part of the MBW crew since day one, so know when he says “I like the corn brood. Nice to see the individual personalities of corny terror” …he means it!

Disagree if you must but know that judgement is law and to the winner a shirt will go…. Thanks to drawers and judges alike. And even though the contest is done we’ll always welcome new Corn Mother drawings for the archives! So draw on and remember, 25 beasts drawn earns you a shirt!