The Women's Corn Grinding Society

THE WOMEN'S CORN GRINDING SOCIETY ⁵

All the women of the Corn Grinding Society (Kuya') were to grind on that day. They shelled all their baskets of corn and they put aside the sooted ears. The head of the Corn Grinding Society called together all the members of her society, and three women stayed in the house of the head of the society and slept there in order to begin to grind before sunrise. Daylight came and all the girls and women of the village shelled baskets of corn to take with them to the Corn Grinding Society to grind so that they might always have plenty. Everybody said, "Don't put the sooted ears in with the good corn." The girls and women of that village all went to grind and the head of the society and the three women who had slept in her house were already grinding. They sang their songs. One of the women heard somebody crying. She said, "Listen, somebody is crying." Just then the door opened and Corn Soot Woman came in crying. She said, "Nobody likes me to be with the corn they are to grind. I am fat but nobody has any use for me." The head woman of the society said to Corn Soot Woman, "Why are you crying?" "I am crying because they don't ever put me among the

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good ears. I am not rotten." The head woman of the society said, "Don't ever separate her from the good corn. She is fat; that is why she is what she is. She is the mother of the corn soot and you must put her in with the good corn whenever you shell it, in order that that too may be fat, as she is." They gave her a new name, Ioashkanake (shuck), and they gave the soot a ceremonial name, Wesa. ¹⁹

Footnotes

14:5 Informant 2.

14:18 Especially at initiations koshare of each of the directions are said to be present.

15:19 The songs of the Corn Grinding Society use these names. One is:

Ioashka, Ioashka.
Wesa, Wesa.

Another:

Ioashka has a baby (that Is)
Wesa, Wesa.
He Ioashka, Ioashka, He.