Early Corn Planters 17 



preyed on them and cut down the man's food supply. But now 

 the deer menaced the man's corn. The jaguar which hunted 

 them became the friend and protector of the corn. Later, as we 

 shall see, the corn planters recognized this and repaid the 

 jaguar by awarding him a place among their gods. 



But in the early days it was the woman who stood guard 

 beside the growing stalks. No doubt she took great credit to 

 herself for the whole matter. Womanlike, she may have ap- 

 propriated to herself the productive quality in the earth. 



The man had no way of knowing it, but when he gave up 

 serving the knife-god and began to scratch the earth and sow, 

 he sowed with the first maize the seeds of a society in which 

 woman was to wield a power she never knew in the old 

 hunting-knife days. Not with an apple, but with bread, woman 

 tempted man and cost him his freedom. 



Waiting for the second harvest, was it the man or the 

 woman who felt the first doubt? What if the miracle could not 

 be repeated? Suppose this new planting of grain would not 

 grow and produce ears as the first planting had done? Suppose 

 the earth withheld something that the plants needed? Suppose 

 some dark force came up out of the ground and destroyed 

 them? 



There was one obvious reply to these fears. That was to 

 propitiate the First Cause of all things; that which, without 

 form, yet created all forms; that which was the beginning and 

 the end of all. The man and the woman knew dimly that this 

 First Cause existed. But it seemed very big and very far away. 

 Too remote and too impersonal to be concerned for one small 

 patch of green stalks in a world that was covered with forest 

 and jungle. 



"After all" if it was the woman who made the suggestion 

 "when you put the seeds in the ground, you give them to the 

 earth. She is their mother. She nourishes them so they grow 

 strong, and bring forth seeds of their own. Let us make an 

 offering to the Earth Mother so she will feel pleased. Let us 



