Mexican Maize Fields 31 



monument on the bank of the Charles River which credits 

 Leif Ericson with the discovery of America in the year 986 

 may be said to be founded on corn. 



Somehow, the evidence of those "self-sown wheat fields" 

 makes it easier to believe in Leif s reaching these shores than 

 in the Irish monk Brendan who reputedly set sail from Kerry 

 in his corracle of brown bull's hide, and returned after years 

 to describe a magical isle which held all the wonders of the 

 Apocalypse; but no mention of maize. Or in the Welsh prince 

 Madoc, son of Owen Gwynned who is said to have sailed to 

 part of the new world and to have returned to Tintagel to 

 sing its glories, and enlist a company of settlers who set sail 

 into the west and were never heard of again.* 



If Madoc or Brendan reached Maya-land, it is strange that 

 their chronicles make no mention of the chief food and source 

 of wealth of the natives. 



But though these heroes may not have entered the gates 

 of Chichen Itza, there were others who did. From the time of 

 the Maya's coming to Yucatan, various Nahua tribes from the 

 north, even from as far north as British Columbia, were filter- 

 ing down into the Valley of Anahuac and touching the fringes 

 of Mayan civilization. They brought their own gods with 

 them. Chief of these was the horrible goddess of the stone 

 hunting knife, later called by the Aztecs Itzpapleotl, "the 

 Obsidian Butterfly"; a deity which demanded blood and more 

 blood in return for giving man his food. 



Her devotees, who had been hunters in the north, found a 

 new food and with it a new faith when they entered the land 

 of the Maya. Even Itzpapleotl suffered a change. An old hymn 

 proclaims : 



Oh, she has become a goddess of the melon-patch 



Our mother Itzpapleotl, the Obsidian Butterfly. 



Her food is on the Nine plains, 



She was nurtured on the hearts of deer, 



Our mother the earth-goddess. 



* Noah Webster gave it as his belief that Madoc built the mounds in the 

 Ohio Valley. 



