Their Stories: Corn People

It was 5:20 on a cool Mexican morning when I found myself rolling over in a lumpy, worn-out bed looking for the culprit of the tiny beeping sounds that had woke me up. My hand soon found the small cell phone and clumsily deactivated the alarm. A rooster crowed outside my window and I laughed to myself as I realized that the roosters in the village had probably been trying to wake me up for over an hour. My first weeks in the village I would wake up every time I heard a rooster or a donkey break the silence of the night. However, I had grown accustomed to the sounds of rural Mexican life as the months had gone by, and now it was the foreign sound of a cell phone alarm that had abruptly ended my dreams.

Like most mornings, my brain was trying to work its way through the fog of sleep to figure out why I was even awake—especially at 5:20 in the morning! When the fog began to clear and little rays of realization began to appear, I jumped out of bed and ran quickly to my backpack to find a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt. Laura*—my host and adopted Mexican mother—would be at the door soon to take me to the corn mill. Two months earlier she had invited me to go with her, but she had decided not to wake me when she found me sleeping that morning. Today would be different. Today I would be awake!

I had just finished pulling my hair into a bun when Laura knocked lightly and pushed the door open. The look of surprise on her face was all the reward I needed for waking up so early. I followed her out the door, picked up a pail of corn as she directed, and silently we walked up the hill to the corn mill. The strain of the corn pails reignited the dull ache in my arms left over from carrying water to the house the night before, but the walk to the corn mill was short and we were able to make it without taking any breaks.

We were the first to the mill so we set about getting things ready—turning on the lights, cleaning the trays, and organizing the different buckets. Women began arriving and we shared  groggy smiles of recognition and friendship as we silently began milling each bucket of corn. The process was quite simple and worked similarly to my family's miniature wheat grinder at home: the kernels were emptied into the top tray which funneled the kernels into the mill, after disappearing for a moment the kernels would reappear in the bottom tray in a dough-like form. The women would quickly knead and shape the dough, place it in their corn pails, then quietly make their way back to their homes to start turning their dough into a batch of tortillas that would last them for at least two days when their turn at the corn mill would come round again.

As simple as the process was, I was fascinated by it. At the heart of my fascination was a growing understanding of the importance of corn in the lives of the people with whom I was living. From my first day in the village, it had been evident that corn was important. The men planted, watched over, and harvested the corn while the women milled it and then spent several hours each day turning it into tortillas. (And there were tortillas in every meal!) All growing up, my parents had taught my siblings and me to work in the family garden—to harvest our own food—but I had never experienced this kind of connection with the earth. If the corn grew, the villagers would eat. If it didn't . . . . well, no one was ever very keen to broach the subject or confront the potential consequences of such a catastrophe. So, naturally, the villagers were customarily preoccupied with anything and everything that had to do with corn, rain and getting a good harvest.

As much as I thought I had learned about the importance of corn for the Mexican people while I lived and worked with them, my understanding only grew once I returned to my university classes in the fall. For example, while in the village, the women explained to me the steps that must be carried out before the corn can even be milled. Each night, the women fill a pail with corn kernels, water, and pulverized limestone (yes, limestone powder!). Overnight, the limestone and water soften the corn so that, when it is milled, the corn comes out as a dough. Simple enough. What I never realized, however, is that this process—known as nixtamalization—has been going on for THOUSANDS of years.

As I studied the process of nixtamalization in my Mexican history class,* I learned that "without the process of nixtamalization, a diet based on maize [corn] could have been the ruin of Mesoamerican civilization" (Tate, 88). In other words, the process I had seen women carry out on a day-to-day basis in the villages was also the dietary foundation of ancient Mesoamerican civilizations! Why? Because placing corn kernels in water and limestone powder breaks the skin of the kernel allowing the minerals to enter the grain "improving the amino acid quality of proteins in the germ and releasing vitamin B3" (Tate 2012, 88). Not only does the process increase the nutritional value, but it also improves the flavor and aroma and reduces the mycotoxins in the corn.(1) While scholars are not sure when this process began, it is clear that civilazations as old as the Olmecs—widely thought to be the first stable civilization in the Mexico region—used the process of nixtamalization. (Watch this video or read here to learn more about nixtamalization.)

Because corn was so vital to the survival of these civilizations, it makes sense why the Olmecs, Maya, Aztecs, and other ancient peoples of Mesoamerica all worshiped some form of corn or rain gods. The most telling belief about man's connection to corn is found in the Popol Vuh, a "scripture-like" compilation of the Maya. According to the creation story told in the Popol Vuh, the gods tried to create man many times without success. In their first attempt, the gods ended up creating the animals of the earth. Since the animals could not speak, they could not worship the gods, so they tried again, this time creating man out of mud. Once the gods realized that this attempt was also a complete failure, they tried again, this time making the beings out of wood. These beings walked and talked (unlike the mud beings which easily crumbled), but they did not have a heart and did not worship the gods, so the gods sent a flood to destroy all the wood beings (whose ancestors the Maya believed to be the monkeys).

On their fourth try, the gods got it right. This time they took of the staple foods of the earth, especially corn, and formed man into the living, breathing, speaking, god-worshiping being that he is today. Essentially, for the Maya and other ancient peoples of America who took on their beliefs, man is literally made of corn. That connection to the earth and the powerful gods who control its elements became such a dominating belief that one Mesoamerican civilization after another built temples and offered sacrifices to the gods so that the corn could grow and the people could continue living.

One of my favorite commentaries on this creation story offers a stark contrast with our way of living:

In our urban civilization the productivity of the land is something rather remote which is taken for granted. It is associated more with chain stores and can openers than with the soil, and, if our thoughts go a step back of that, we envision a man on a tractor or behind a team of horses, something picturesque, but unrelated to our efforts to earn our daily bread.

The Maya, who has to struggle against climate, tropical pests, and a too exuberant vegetation, sees things in a very different light. His livelihood depends literally on the sweat of his brow, not on the steaming flanks of a pair of horses. Even now, with the benefit of crops introduced from the Old World to vary his diet, 80 percent of his food is maize. He eats it with every meal year in and year out, and so the failure of that one crop is a disaster to him. The maize seems to be fighting beside him in an unending defense against every kind of enemy, trying to survive in order that the man and his family may also live. (Thompson 2002, 87)

 While I would never suggest that we go back to the way the Maya lived and begin to worship corn gods, I do believe that we can learn something from the clear contrast in our ways of living. While living in and experiencing the humble way of life of rural Mexico, I wrote " They may be 'poor,' but I am living in the middle of the Mexican desert with some of the happiest people I've ever met. Their examples have taught me that I should never have (or want) so many of the material comforts of the world that I forget to be happy." I remember thinking the same thing on a humanitarian trip in Guatemala when I realized that I didn't want to offer the people any of the material things we have in our society. I was almost afraid that the material development would be what they would get out of our service, rather than better health and education (we were building a school house). More than anything, I wanted to share what they had with the people that I love.

Whether in Guatemala or Mexico, here are a few of the lessons I've learned from the "corn people:" love and trust in God (that's right, they don't worship corn gods anymore); put family first by developing and nurturing your relationships; have a connection with nature, it's good for the soul; sacrifice for your education, it is worth more than any money you will ever be paid because of it; and be grateful for what you have, gratitude can turn any trial into a blessing and any blessing into happiness. I think back on that early Mexican morning and give thanks for the opportunity I have had to learn from the "corn people." They have been some of my greatest teachers, and all they did to teach me was live their lives. My hope for all of us is that we will never get so used to living in the world that we forget to live from the earth and the God who gave it, and all our blessings, to us.

*Name changed

Works Cited:

Tate, Carolyn E. Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation. Texas: University of Texas Press. 2012.

Thompson, J. Eric. "The Meaning of Maize for the Maya" in The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson, 86-91. London: Duke University Press, 2002.