This is a legend about the First People and how corn was introduced
to them. There was a young man who had been searching for food.
He was very lonely and became discouraged when he could not
find anything to eat. He went to sleep. When he awoke, he saw
a beautiful woman with the hair of golden silk watching him.
As he spoke to her she floated away from him. Finally the lonely
young man begged her not to leave and she spoke. She promised
to stay with him forever if he would do as she said. First she
took him to a field of dry grass and taught him how make fire
by rubbing two sticks together and then he was to burn the grasses.
That night he was instructed to take her by her silken hair
and pull her over the charred earth, an act which she insisted
would help his people. He did so and the next morning the two
were gone, but where she had been pulled over the charred earth
there were new green plants emerging from the black earth.
The golden silk in the ears of the corn are reminders that
the pale haired woman did not forget them.
