The Corncob

At the end of the last century, the corncob of corn (figure 1) was not burned in El Salvador. Salvadorans believed that the corncob of corn was the skeleton of corn and the elders said that the devil stored corn and sorghum so that our Lord’s children would die.

Figure 1. The Corncob.

Our Lord was disappointed by the devil’s actions and tried to think of a strategy on how to fight him, but he couldn’t find a good one. After a couple of days, he spoke with a yellow ant and a mouse. He asked them if they had any idea how to handle it. They told him this was easy, they would make a tunnel under the earth and in this way, the yellow ant took out the sorghum and the mouse the corn.

After this event, sorghum became the favorite grain of yellow for ants and corn for the mice. In this way, the Salvadoran ancestors discovered corn and sorghum.

Inspired by Salvador Hernández’s version collected by Ennis Arely Arevalo Girón, Lissette Amelia Gutierrez Paz, and Karen Liseth Mancia Bonilla in their thesis Cultura Popular de Guatajiagua.

Location: Guatajiagua, El Salvador

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