The Red Corn
In the year 1123, there was a lot of happiness in El Salvador. The rains had fallen with love; the moon had illuminated the rivers making them silverish, the Indians threw the grains of white corn, and even as Sihuapil’s teeth on the soil shelled in waves by the plow.
During this year, timid little leaves covered the soil from drinking and breathing the moon. They grew and grew.
One day, the goddess Sucuxi decided to visit the Indians. She was so beautiful by her dark skin, so good by her simplicity, and so pure by her naiveness. On that day, she looked from the top of a hill, at every hard-working Indian. In reward for their efforts, she wanted to give them a more gallant harvest. She descended from the hill to the cornfields that already gave ears of corn and wanted to make their stems taller than an Indian.
Sucuxi began to walk through those cornfields that were crazy with joy when they heard the hymns of the wind, but between the stems of corn, a bush that had busted a mushroom came to stop the serene.
In the mushroom, there were intruding thorns that hurt her brown feet, and from there, sprouted blood drops very warm and very red. The Goddess felt pain and flew to her cabin, dropping blood on the grains from a wound opened by mischievous thrushes. The cornfields drank the blood and turned from white to red like the blood.
Days passed, and the Indians cut the harvest and noticed a rare thing, they found an ear of red and red corns. Since that day, there is red corn (figure 1) in their lands.
During this year, timid little leaves covered the soil from drinking and breathing the moon. They grew and grew.
One day, the goddess Sucuxi decided to visit the Indians. She was so beautiful by her dark skin, so good by her simplicity, and so pure by her naiveness. On that day, she looked from the top of a hill, at every hard-working Indian. In reward for their efforts, she wanted to give them a more gallant harvest. She descended from the hill to the cornfields that already gave ears of corn and wanted to make their stems taller than an Indian.
Sucuxi began to walk through those cornfields that were crazy with joy when they heard the hymns of the wind, but between the stems of corn, a bush that had busted a mushroom came to stop the serene.
In the mushroom, there were intruding thorns that hurt her brown feet, and from there, sprouted blood drops very warm and very red. The Goddess felt pain and flew to her cabin, dropping blood on the grains from a wound opened by mischievous thrushes. The cornfields drank the blood and turned from white to red like the blood.
Days passed, and the Indians cut the harvest and noticed a rare thing, they found an ear of red and red corns. Since that day, there is red corn (figure 1) in their lands.
Figure 1. The red corn.
Inspired by Leyendas de El Salvador’s version.
Comments
Post a Comment