Kahesana Xaskwim (the Corn Mother)

Kahesana Xaskwim, the Corn Mother (literally 'our mother corn,' from xaskwim, maize), is the Lenape spirit of the staple crop. As one of the manitowak that the Creator placed over the world, she personifies maize and holds the power to give or withhold it. Lenape oral tradition, catalogued by Bierhorst and reflected in the ethnographies, tells how the Corn Mother once left the earth in sorrow because young men scorned her and denied she existed, so that the corn seed failed; she relented and the harvest was restored only when an old man offered her respect and the people sang and danced in her honor. The Lenape sustained their relationship with her through burnt offerings, marking corn as a sacred gift held in trust rather than a mere commodity.

Domains

• agriculture and maize
• sustenance and harvest

Powers

• to give and to withdraw the gift of corn from the people

Epithets

• Kahesana XaskwimJohn Bierhorst, Mythology of the Lenape: Guide and Texts (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995). (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: Kishelemukong (the Great Creator)The Corn Mother is numbered among the manitowak that the Creator set over the world, holding the gift of maize in trust for the people under the Creator's order.M. R. Harrington, Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1921). (secondary)

Sources

• Kahesana Xaskwim, the Corn Mother, is the Lenape spirit of maize who gives and withdraws the harvest, honored in burnt offerings and in the narrative of how the people lost and regained their corn.: John Bierhorst, Mythology of the Lenape: Guide and Texts (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995). (secondary); M. R. Harrington, Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape (New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1921). (secondary)