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A beautiful dance, with the Corn Maidens costumed and wear- 
ing an elaborate colored headdress, and bearing decorated ears of 
corn in each hand, 1s still performed by the Zujis. 
Iric. 9. A Zufi woman in typical costume shelling corn with a cob into a 
basket tray. Photograph by Donald A. Cadzow, 
The cult of the corn was found also among tribes that hunted 
much of the time, although they lived in permanent villages com- 
posed of substantial earth-lodges. Such were the Pawnee and the 
Omaha Indians of Nebraska, and the Arikara of North Dakota, 
for example, among whom corn was so important that elaborate 
ceremonies were performed in its honor and glory. It is doubtful 
if any Indians who cultivated maize did not practise rites for its 
successful growth, or who did not recount many myths and folk- 
tales or sing songs relating to the Corn Mother or her counterpart. 
We cannot enter deeply into the subject here; indeed it would re- 
quire a very large volume to tell the story of corn in its relation to 
the Indians, and then perhaps the half would not be told. But we 
must indulge ourselves a moment to summarize the religious re- 
gard in which corn was held by the Pawnee, whose homeland was 
the Platte river valley, but who hunted bison on the great plains 
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