134. The Weeping of the Corn, and Bean, and Squash People
There was in the olden time a village of the Iroquois which was situated in a very fertile and beautiful country. They raised corn and beans and squashes, and for many years they were contented and prosperous. But there came a time when their crops began to fail them—the corncobs were bare of grains, the bean pods were empty, [[702]]and the squashes would wither away before the time to harvest them. The people went hungry, for they had no food from their fields and game was very scarce.
One day a very old woman, who was Matron and Chief of her clan, was walking near her planted field, meditating on the misfortune of her people. As she walked she heard bitter weeping out in the field, and she at once decided that some one must be in deep distress. So, walking into the planted field, she was surprised to find that it was the corn that was weeping; and the beans were weeping too; and the squashes were weeping also. The old woman had great compassion for the corn and the beans and the squashes for their weeping. She stopped beside a hill of corn and asked, “Oh, you dear Corn, why do you weep? Tell me the reason.” The Corn between sobs said, “You place us in the ground to grow, but you do not perform your further duties to us. You do not cover us with sufficient earth as you know you should; and you do not hill up the earth about our feet so that we can stand firm; and you fail to dig up the earth sufficiently around us to give us water; so it is that many of us have remained only a few hours or a day or two and then have gone home; only a small number of us remain and now we are all dying because of your neglect. You even permit our enemies to strangle us to death.”
As the old Matron listened to this pitiful story she was bitterly grieved. She then went to the Bean people and to the Squash people, and from both she heard the same painful story of neglect by her people. She was deeply moved, and so she went to her lodge and wept along the path homeward. Having seated herself on her couch in her lodge, she kept on weeping. Her people having heard her sobbing were much puzzled by it, and they being moved by sympathy also began to weep with their Matron. Soon many persons had assembled at her lodge, and they all were mourning with the old woman.
Finally, the chief of the clan came to the lodge and addressing the people he told them to cease their weeping and to be of good cheer; and that he would ask their Matron what had caused her to return from the planted field with such grief. So the people ceased their weeping, and then the chief, addressing their Matron, who was still sobbing bitterly, asked, “Mother, what caused you to weep while you were in the planted field?” After somewhat composing herself she replied to this question by saying that she had heard bitter wailings in the planted fields and that on going there to learn the cause the Corn people, and the Bean people, and the Squash people had complained to her that she and her people had not properly cared for them by not covering them with sufficient earth to enable them to live and by permitting their enemies to grow up around [[703]]them so that they had no more ground on which to stand. Then the Matron ceased talking, but kept on weeping.
Upon hearing this statement the people assured the chief that this was the first information they had received as to the reason why their Matron had been grieving so bitterly.
Thereupon the chief called a council of his clan and laid before it the remarkable statement of their Matron. The council upon hearing this recital resolved that in the future whoever planted either corn or beans or squashes must cover the grain with sufficient earth to give it sustenance, and must care for the growing plants by properly hilling them and by digging around them to loosen the earth to make it mellow, and lastly, by destroying their enemies (the weeds) who grew about them so luxuriantly.
So, in the following spring, when planting time returned, they were again admonished as to the proper methods of planting the corn, the beans, and the squashes. The people all agreed that they would follow the advice of the council in this matter because of the statement of their Matron as to the real cause of their withered crops.
So, in accordance with this resolution, the next springtime they did place the seed corn and beans and squashes sufficiently deep in the ground to give these grains sufficient covering of earth to grow well. The old chief stood by the planters while they were seeding their fields to see that the work was properly done. Later, when the tender sprouts of corn and beans and squashes had reached such height that they required more earth to support them, the people were called together and urged to hill up their growing crops and to destroy thoroughly the enemies (weeds) of these useful plants. These plants were growing luxuriantly and were strong, but toward harvest time something came and destroyed these growing crops. A certain nation of people came and carried away the corn and the beans, leaving only some squash shells. Again the people mourned their loss, confessing that they must have been guilty of some other form of negligence.
So the following spring they again took great pains in their planting and in their care for their crops; but just as soon as the green corn was becoming fine and fit to eat a certain nation of people began to steal the corn and beans and squashes. The people suspected what people had come and carried away their corn and beans and squashes.
So the chief of the people called a council to discuss the situation and to suggest means to meet it. It was finally resolved that several stout and alert warriors should be set to watch the planted fields to see who might come to steal the ripening crops. These watchmen went into the fields in the evening. Toward the dawn of day they [[704]]discovered a number of persons who were tearing off the ears of corn and the bean pods, and also others who were stealing the squashes. These thieves they captured and held as prisoners. These prisoners were taken in the morning to the council lodge before the clan chief.
The chief, after looking the prisoners over, remarked that these thieves were their enemies because they had stolen their corn and beans and squashes. Then he asked one of the corn thieves, “Where do you live?” “A long way hence in the forest,” came the reply. “Are there many of your people?” continued the chief. “We are a large nation,” came the answer. In like manner he questioned the squash thief and the bean thieves, and these made replies similar to those made by the corn thieves.
They bound the corn thieves and daily they took them out of the lodge and all the chiefs and the people came to see them, and everyone was privileged to strike these thieves a blow with a staff, and the thieves would weep bitterly at this treatment. Then they would be taken back into the lodge. The bean thieves and the squash thieves were also daily punished in this way.
Daily the corn thieves wept loudly. After a long time had elapsed these thieves were told that if they would conduct the people to their own nation they would be set free. The corn thieves agreed to this proposition and the old chief selected a party of his warriors to lead the thieves back to their own nation.
The corn thieves led the warriors a long way into the forest. But at last they came to a settlement, and the thieves said this is a village of our people. The warriors killed many of the people, and then they set free the thieves whom they had brought back to their country. The people whom the warriors had killed were carried home.
Then some warriors were sent to the squash stealers with an order to split their upper lips so that they would not be able to eat squashes again.
It is said that the warriors whipped the corn thieves so much during their captivity that they wept so much that their faces were striped and their backs were striped and their tails were ringed, from the blows they received; and these marks have remained to this day. The corn thieves were raccoons. The squash thieves were rabbits (hares?), and their lips have remained split to this day from this punishment.
Tradition says that the ancestors of the Seneca thought that all trees and shrubs and plants were endowed with human life and were divided into families, having brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. And that in like manner the Corn, and Beans, and the Squash have human lives, and that if one offended them they would grieve and would depart and would leave the people without food. [[705]]