"Indigenous
people have always known corn metaphorically in two or more of the four
senses, mother, enabler, transformer, healer; that I use throughout
this weaving. Although early European settlers took the grain only,
there is evidence in America today that the Corn-Mother has taken
barriers of culture and language in stride and intimated her spirit to
those who will listen, even if they don't know her story or call her by
name."
Marilou Awiakta
"Native
American Indian legends tell of The Corn Mother sacrificing herself
so that her people could have life. According to her instructions, in
one
legend, she was to be killed, her dead body dismembered, strun among the
fields
and planted. In harvest ceremony after harvest ceremony the last sheaf
of corn was
gathered together and dressed in women’s clothing. This Corn Mother
doll was referred to as The Old Woman, The Old Grandmother,
Old Wife or even The Great Mother. To assure a plentiful harvest The Old
Corn
Mother was given to a family for safe keeping until the next growing
season
began and the cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth continued. As I
looked further into what I had learned about the archetype of the old
woman, I realized that the power of the “Old Woman” is her ability to
embrace
change, her willingness to give birth to her Old Self, to make friends
with her
death and trust in rebirth."
Sondra Fields
I recently made a new Corn Mother mask, which I'm taking with me on my travels (my brother's funeral in California, then a trip up the coast). She wanted to come with me, and I will be taking the masks to show my friends Mana and Annie in Willits, to receive a blessing for it. The story of the previous Corn Mother mask was quite wonderful, and although I've shared it before, I felt like re-posting it here. Corn Mother is the Sustainer of the Americas, sacred in virtually all native American traditions. I hope this mask will find new Dancers to share Her ever evolving stories.
"And where corn is the Corn-Mother is also.‘This thing they call corn is I'."
Marilou Awiakta
Corn Mother has many names, and among the Cherokee she is called "Selu".
The story is that Selu fed her family with delicious grain, but no one knew where it came from. Finally her sons saw her shaking corn from her body, discovering her secret. They had witnessed a mystery they could not understand. Being young, fearful, and
ignorant, they resolved to kill their mother, calling her a witch, and making disastrous assumptions about her power. Knowing she could not give them wisdom, nor teach them the ways of nature,
Selu told them to bury her body in the
earth. Thus, She is born again each year, nourishing her children in a continuing act of sacrifice. Selu does not punish - in loving generosity,
She offers her
children a chance to return to good relationship.
My own relationship with Selu began in 2002.
I had given masks to choreographer Mana
Youngbear to work with in a ritual performance she was organizing at the Black Box Theatre in Oakland. I was living in Arizona at the time, and I didn't know what her program was going to be, but I looked forward to returning to California to attend the performance.
Several
weeks before her event, I attended an unrelated event at the Ritual Center in Oakland, founded by Matthew Fox. A guided meditation by a woman minister was central to this ritual event, which was dedicated to the return of the Divine Feminine. The meditation was about the need to heal the damage done to the feminine in the past, and she spoke of the Inquisition, the Burning Times. As I sat on the floor in a darkened room with some 300 people, I could hear the sound of many people weeping.
And yet I found myself absorbed by a vision. When I closed
my eyes I immediately saw
a Native American woman dancing. I opened my eyes, and
closed my eyes
again, and still she danced before me. Dressed in a traditional fringed costume, she had ears of
multi-colored corn
in her hands as she danced, and this vision continued until the end of the meditation.
It was so vivid that when I returned to my studio, I decided to make a mask for Corn Mother. I bought an ear of corn, cast it so I could duplicate it in leather, and made a mask with
corn on each side of the face.
I had been reading about Black
Elk, the great Lakota shaman. As a young boy, he foresaw the destruction of his people,
what he called the "hoop" of the Lakota nation. But he also prophesied
a "hoop of the nations": a great circle, composed of many
interlocking circles, that would someday come to be. A "Rainbow Tribe". So I painted a
rainbow on the mask's forehead, because the children of America are
now of all colors.
"When
I held up an ear of calico corn we
would think about this wisdom of the Corn Mother. How the different
kernels are ranged around the cob, no one more important than the other.
How each kernel respects the space of those on either side, yet remains
itself - red, black, white, yellow or combinations of those colors.
How the Corn-Mother, in Her physical being, exemplifies unity in diversity." ..........Cherokee poet Marilou Awiakta
Just
before her performance, I spoke with Mana, and learned there was one dancer in Manna's
cast who had no mask, Christy. Christy had felt inspired to dance "Green Corn
Woman" because of her deep affinity with the Corn Mother, and had created her costume for the performance. Now it seemed she had her mask.
Here is the story Christy told me when we finally met, and the new mask was delivered.
 |
| Christy Salo as "Green Corn Woman" |
Cornmother's
Gift
by Christy Salo
(2002)
I made a bouquet of corn for Manna's wedding, with a
necklace of rainbow beads I bought at a garage sale. I later used this
same bouquet I to dance Green Corn Woman. Manna is part Cherokee, and when she cast her show, she
asked if I wanted to dance Corn Mother. We didn't have a mask for her,
but I was inspired to dance anyway.
I knew very little about the Native
American Corn Mother, about Selu, who is Cornmother to the Cherokee. I planned on doing some research. Along the way,
I remember stopping at a used bookstore. Opening a rather esoteric book
at random, I discovered I was looking at an article about the Corn Maiden.
I was further stunned to find it illustrated by Vera Louise Drysdale.
Vera was my friend, years ago, when I lived in Sedona.
And so, without any further urging, I was ready to begin.
The feeling of familiarity continued as I created a costume. I was looking
for materials I would need, and within a few days, Manna left a message. "Christy" she
said, "There is a Hopi woman visiting Isis Oasis Retreat
Center, and you need to meet her! She gave me some 300 year old
corn meal to
give to you!"
Once
again, I felt Selu encouraging me! I thought about what She meant
to me personally. To me, Selu is
about the wealth that
comes from the work of forgiveness. How can we be fed and sustained,
how can we create peace, if we cannot practice the lessons of
forgiveness, if we cannot learn tolerance and compassion for
our differences?
That is the beginning place for the cooperation we will need in
order to evolve
into a global family. In America, we have mixed bloodlines, "rainbow
blood". Especially as Americans, our challenge is to understand
our true relationship to each other. I've always conceived of
the Rainbow as actually being a circle. Half of the rainbow disappears
into the ground,
into an underworld realm, where it exists beneath the Earth,
hidden,
but present. Like the Corn Mother. Aren't we all Her children?
Perhaps, what she gives us now is the means to seed a rainbow vision.
We received the new mask at the time of the lunar eclipse,
in May of 2002, and decided it was an auspicious time to consecrate it
with our dried corn. As we did, a flash of light went off in the room!
At first we thought it was a light bulb that blew out. But no electric
lights had been turned on in that room. We looked at each other amazed,
and felt the presence of Corn Mother.
References:
http://www.returnofthecornmothers.com/
Actually, in 2007 something similar happened at Tonopah Hot Springs. I had received an Aldon Dow Fellowship, and was going to pursue my Spider Woman's Hands project in Michigan. 5 months before leaving I was sitting in a tub at Tonopah, and chanced to talk with someone who lived there.........he took me that day to a petroglyph site in the area, and gave me some of his own photos of petroglyphs. One was, undoubtedly, a spider - Spider Woman. I have used that photo as a logo many times. 
The springs at TorC were so revered by native people that there was an agreement that, regardless of the continuing warfare of various tribes, there would be no conflict allowed at the springs. Many of the Goddesses and Gods of world mythology began as what the Romans called "Numina", the Genius Loci or Spirit of place. For the Romans, as for virtually all early peoples, a healing spring was overseen and inhabited by an indwelling intelligence, an indwelling guardian. Little shrines were always made to the Numen, and often, as in the case of a healing spring or a place of oracular power, the Numina were consulted, petitioned, and honored. This understanding that place was alive, conversant, and human beings were a reciprocal part of that conversation (a contemporary way of putting it might be "local ecology") was expressed and understood through myth making. 
