Some American Corn Gods 267 



ernesses. They were esteemed the mistresses of the soil. "Who/' 

 said our forefathers, "brings us into being? Who cultivates our 

 lands, kindles our fires, and boils our pots, but the women?" 



Our women, Brother, entreat that the veneration of our ances- 

 tors in favor of the women be not disregarded, and that they may 

 not be despised. The Great Spirit made them. The Female Gov- 

 ernesses entreat the Great Chief to put forth his strength and to 

 preserve them in peace. For they are the life of the nation. 



It is impossible to understand the relationship between men 

 and women in all its rich variety without some knowledge at 

 least of what that relationship has been in their united service 

 to the Earth Mother goddess. For in the very real ritual of 

 sowing, dressing, harvesting and grinding corn, men and 

 women stand in their true relationship to each other and to 

 the earth. The eager desire to return to the soil on the part of 

 many intellectualized city dwellers during the past few years 

 frequently reflects a longing for release from a neuroticism and 

 from a false relationship to each other in which society and 

 economics have enmeshed them. 



The whites who came to the Americas from the old civiliza- 

 tions of Europe, brought with them subliminal memories of 

 ancient moon and earth worship. True, that worship had 

 ceased centuries before the new world was discovered. As 

 knowledge overcame ignorance and fear, and as science re- 

 placed magic, men had ceased to feel a necessity to bow to 

 the mysterious, fructifying, feminine force in nature. They 

 began to feel power within themselves. As they became in- 

 creasingly aware of their own intellectual powers, they turned 

 from the moon to the sun, which was their symbol of mascu- 

 line energy and understanding. 



John Smith and those he inspired with faith in America 

 were sun-worshippers, in the sense that they believed in their 

 own powers to deal with the unknown. The Plymouth colo- 

 nists, and those who gathered around the Reverend Francis 

 Higginson at Salem, had faith in the printed Word of God, in 

 gunpowder and in their own intestinal fortitude to deal with 



