WHERE CORN CAME FROM
Cheyenne

During the season before snow, a Cheyenne hunter, who was also a family man, went on a hunt and never returned. His wife and young son had no food except tomatoes.

One day while the mother was gathering tomatoes, a very well fed little boy appeared and invited the starving boy to play. They became friends, and played together each day after the boy’s mother left.

One morning before the mother left she instructed her son to search the Well Fed Boy’s pockets to discover where he was finding so much nutritious food. The boy obeyed his mother, and tore one of Well Fed Boy’s pockets as soon as he arrived to play. Well Fed Boy screamed and ran away. But as he ran, he left a trail of plump golden corn. The boy and his mother followed the trail to a deerskin bag, which was filled with the plump corn. They dragged the bag to their camp, and mixed the corn with tomato creating a healthful food.

During the following spring, several hunters came to the woman’s camp, bringing deer and buffalo meat. The woman showed them the corn, and they planted what remained.

From that time on, The Cheyenne People had corn, and lived well after that.

From Traditional Stories and Foods: An American Indian Remembers, by Joan Leslie Woodruff