Maize Day

With the help of their legends, the natives of America could trace the history of maize to the beginning of time. Maize was, they believed, the food of the gods that had created the Earth, and so it played a central role in many native myths and legends.

It also came to be one of their most important foods. In fact, the word maize itself derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous word for plant. In one form or other, maize made up roughly 65 percent of the native diet.

In fact, maize was so important to the natives that when Europeans first came to North America in search of gold and asked the natives about whether there was any precious yellow substance to be found there, the natives showed them corn, for to them there was almost nothing more valuable than that grain.