Reading Notes: Mississippi Valley/Great Lakes Unit, Part A

My favorite story, or should I say stories, from this part of the unit were the two stories about the origin of corn. One is from the Ojibwa people and the other from the Odawa people.

In the Ojibwa story, there is a beautiful stranger sent to wrestle with a human boy. The boy was fasting, but as he wrestled the stranger each day he grew stronger. Eventually he defeated the stranger who instructed him to bury his body. From where his body was buried, corn grew. 

The Odawa story was similar in that it involved wrestling, and the winner buried pieces of his fallen foe, and from that corn grew. 

I was interested to see that wrestling and burying your opponent was common among these stories, and it got me thinking as to if other corn origin stories would have those things as well. If I choose this story to re-tell, that is something I would want to look in to. 

(Amazing Maize on Wikimedia)

Bibliography: "Mondamin" from Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes, edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1914). (Web Source)