What Three Corn Mothers Have to Say About Motherhood, Intergenerationality, and Identity

The first four humans on earth had special abilities. Not only could they speak the language of the gods, but they could see everything under the sky, on the earth, to the limits of space, and to the limits of time. However, the gods decided that these humans had too many abilities and limited their sight to what was more close by (Tedlock 1996, 21, 147-148). According to Tedlock, the people from a place called Quiché, in an effort to overcome this nearsightedness, developed a narrative that would be a “seeing instrument,” and this is the Popol Vuh (21). I hope to use this text, as well as other creation stories and my essay as seeing instruments to explore some complex inquiries about corn.

The Popol Vuh not only describes how humans were made, but how humans and corn were made at the same time. This act of shaping humans and growing corn was made possible because various women -particularly Blood Moon- grew corn and later Xmucane helped prepare the corn to make humans. When this story is compared to the Cherokee story of Selu and the Haudenosaunee story of Skywoman, my understanding of corn is both clearer and more nuanced. In these three narratives, corn is familial. It is a woman, it is grown by women and it gives groups of people an identity. It also teaches younger generations life lessons that they practice through their responsible cultivation of the crop.

Corn, which was first cultivated in southern Mexico and/or Central America about 7,000 years ago, has spread throughout the continent for over thousands of years. Most corn based cultures have recorded in song, art, ritual, dance, and ceremony how it came to them (Rodríguez 2014, 65). By closely exploring three of these texts, as well as more contemporary art and poetry inspired by the texts, I hope to learn more about various relationships to corn. How do these relationships fold into the history and continuation of Indigenous corn cultivation and agricultural movements across North America?

In the Popol Vuh, Selu, and Skywoman narratives, corn is connected to motherhood, intergenerationality, and identity while challenging the human/plant binary. Contemporary art and poetry inspired by the texts highlight decolonial perspectives on food and family. These narratives bring attention to the interconnectedness between cultural sovereignty, food sovereignty, and environmental frameworks that push forward many Indigenous agricultural movements across North America.

Corn in the Popol Vuh

The Popol Vuh, the Quiché Mayan book of creation, is one of the most important texts in the native languages of the Americas (Tedlock, back cover). It is also a text that originated in the same area that corn originated. Therefore, I will first explore this text because it knows corn and the origin of corn very well.

First, I will analyse one scene in the Popol Vuh where a mother engages with corn in order to provide the possibility for her children to live. This mother is able to communicate with guardians of food, and she creates corn by following her own intuition. Her name is Blood Moon.

Blood Moon is the daughter of Blood Gatherer, quite literally a person who brings blood together, which is needed to make humans (98). Therefore, by knowing her name, we are foreshadowed that she will be influential in the shaping of humans before we read about the shaping of humans from corn later in Tedlock’s translation.

Even though she is not present in the scene where humans are shaped out of corn, Blood Moon still participates in the shaping of humans. The scene I will analyse starts with Blood Moon finding a home to raise her babies, whom she is pregnant with. She decides to live with grandmother Xmucane and gives birth there despite Xmucane not believing that Blood Moon is her daughter-in-law. Xmucane asks Blood Moon to pick a “big netful of ripe corn ears” from the garden to feed her children (102). Blood Moon sees that the garden does not have enough corn to feed them, so she calls upon the guardians of food to help her produce more corn (103). She eventually succeeds in feeding the children who will turn into a sun and moon. The sun is what feeds and grows the corn that is later shaped into humans, thus connecting Blood Moon and her interaction with corn to the shaping of humans.

Upon closely analysing this scene, we see that Blood Moon uses her intuition, emphasizing her unique relationship with corn. The only subjects in this scene are Blood Moon, the corn, and the guardians of food (although we see later that the animals help her carry her net). She is not told by anyone to call upon these guardians, but seems to already know how to reach them. After calling upon these guardians, she takes hold of the bunch of silk on the top of the ear of corn and pulls it straight out. The ear reproduces itself to make food for the net (103). The way that this scene is written, she never realizes or even takes an educated guess to pull on the silk but simply does so without hesitation. She is showing that she has a strong knowledge or relationship with corn and an instinctual need to provide food for her family. Anatomically, the silk of the corn is female, compared to the male tassel, so perhaps she also connects to that part of the corn as a female. Do all mothers have this ability? To see that Blood Moon was able to bring about so much corn, I see that mothers have special connections with corn and the guardians of corn that are awakened when they are in need of feeding their children.

Corn in Selu

Now I will talk about a story in the book, Selu by Marilou Awiakta. This is a Cherokee story, and I read a telling of it by Siquanid’ to Jack and Anna Kilpatrick. This narrative, as well as a poem inspired by it, connect very complex emotions such as vulnerability, pride, pity, and joy, emotions that many people, including non-Natives, may associate as more human or too complex for plants, to the mother of corn and the creation of corn, thus challenging the human/plant conceptual binary.

To paraphrase the story in my own words, a very old woman had two grandsons. She fed them a meal made of corn, and they thought it was delicious. Since they did not know where it came from, they curiously spied on their grandmother and found that she would strike the sides of her body for grits to fall. The brothers were put off by this idea, saying it was “unsavory.” The grandmother suddenly fell ill and instructed her grandsons to bury her when she died, so that corn would grow out of the earth to feed them for generations (Awiakta 1993, 10-14).

Comparing Selu and Popol Vuh

From Selu, we learn that corn started from a woman’s body. This may or may not be different from Blood Moon’s scene in Popol Vuh, where corn was always in the ground and was instead harvested and prepared by her. As I consider these two narratives about the origin of corn, it is important to remember how corn actually originated. We know that corn was bred by humans and also quite impressively, too, as scientists are unable to reproduce corn from wild grains today. Because scientists are still unable to recreate the corn, there is also a level of marvel in its creation. When Blood Moon pulls multiple ears of corn from one plant, or when Selu produces grits of corn from her sides, this is also marvelous and cannot be replicated by science. Therefore, these stories speak to the marvel of the existence of corn as well as the questions that are still left unanswered about the origins of corn and the origins of identity. Additionally, because corn came from women and women lived on in corn, these stories are challenging and blending what it means to be a mother and what it means to be a plant.

Readers learn from Selu that you cannot spy on corn seed when it is doing its private work but instead show Corn-Mother respect. In both Blood Moon and Selu’s experiences producing corn, they were quite vulnerable, and both stories ended with their families learning to respect them. When I think of calling upon guardians, I imagine making a prayer, often done in private so as to not be distracted. To strike the sides of your body may be an awkward or uncomfortable task, and often people like to touch their bodies when they are alone. Here, I learn that the process of producing food can require often underseen hard work by women and that creation is a labor intensive, raw, and vulnerable process.

It may be a vulnerable process, but is it also a joyful process? Contemporary Abenaki poet Cheryl Savageau writes about the joys and difficulties of motherhood and providing for children in her poem, “No Pity.” In this poem, the speaker is nursing a newborn baby. As she guides his mouth to her breast with her hand, milk “sprays out over the breakfast table.” She then says, “I am laughing out loud at the wonder of it [...] I am Selu running her hands up her belly / coaxing waterfalls of corn from her breasts, / filling baskets.” Then, her husband loses his appetite from the sight of it and declares that women are disgusting. She says “I have no pity,” (Savageau 2006, 48).

In this sequence of events, we see that she is expressing a sort of fascination over the abundance of milk she has created while being a mother. When she likens her breast milk to corn, I cannot help but compare the two substances. According to Awiakta, when a kernel begins to form, it “swells with milk” (242). Breast milk and a corn kernel are actually quite similar. The breast milk feeds and sustains the newborn baby just as the sugars in the endosperm of the kernel feed the little embryo. Both act as reproduction and motherhood, as they sustain the next generation. Therefore, when one eats corn, they are eating sugars that contain the ingredients meant to form the next generations. To remember that your body decided to create overflowing amounts of the milk of creation simply because you are a reproducing mother and to remember that corn does this hundreds of times with its rows of kernels is to remember that organisms want so badly to create and celebrate life. That thought alone is deserving of so much respect.

It is important that this poem is titled, “No Pity,” too, because it emphasizes that motherhood is a worthwhile and prideful experience despite the difficulties. Similarly, grandmother Xmucane experiences similar joys and sorrows. She had to mourn the initial loss of her grandchildren but later was able to find happiness when she knew they were still alive but in different forms (Tedlock, 139). Later, when she is shaping humans out of corn, she also feels “happy” (146). One must not forget the happiness and pride that comes with motherhood: this is something I have yet to feel having never birthed a baby, but something that I feel from those who produce life around me. I see better how a mother of babies and a mother of corn can both feel this joy.

“No Pity’s” narrator’s husband was disgusted by her milk, which reminded me of how the two grandsons in Selu would not eat after learning about the source of the corn or that Blood Moon was not supported by her family before she returned with the net of corn. Specifically, in Blood Moon’s case, Xmucane only believed that she was her daughter-in-law when she saw that she had produced so much without ruining the garden (Tedlock 104). This adds depth to all three of their characters. Mother figures may often be disregarded or disrespected by those who get to consume the rewards. In an interview, Savageau describes this abundance as something that men are sometimes afraid of and she wants to celebrate this abundance (“Corn Woman, Video and Transcript | Hidden Drives”). Again, we are provided with another example of how reproduction and creation can be a sometimes underappreciated task for mothers but that it is also very beautiful.

To take this process, of a mother creating, and put it in the context of corn, I feel that its existence must be as miraculous as the idea of birthing a baby child. As Savageau said, as women, “we are connected to corn mother in that way because we are also providing life from our own bodies,” (ibid). Also, by understanding the hard work that goes into producing corn, especially when I can relate to these feelings as a woman, I feel more appreciative that I am able to consume corn and see that perhaps the production of food by the food themselves is a very emotional process.

Corn in Skywoman

Now, I will compare Selu and Blood Moon to Skywoman. The Haudenosaunee story of Skywoman starts as such, as told by Joanne Shenandoah: Skywoman fell from a hole in the Sky World. It is often said that a beast may have handed her an ear of corn as she fell (Mt. Pleasant 2011, 4). Later in the story, Skywoman gave birth to a daughter named Tekawerahkwa who later died giving birth to twin sons. From the daughter’s grave grew corn, beans, squash, plants which, according to Shenandoah, will one day feed billions of people (1998, 25).

This story is so related to both the stories in the Popol Vuh and Selu that it seems as if they were speaking of the same characters. In the Popol Vuh, grandmother Xmucane’s daughter Blood Moon gave birth to twin sons. Blood Moon is also able to grow corn like Tekawerahkwa. Skywoman and Xmucane’s characters are also similar because they are both responsible for not only forming the Haudenosaunee and Quiché people, but also for, perhaps indirectly, providing these people with corn to eat. This emphasizes the idea of intergenerationality and the importance of the figure of the mother planting corn for future generations. It also shows that three stories from very distant locations have characters with similar roles and relationships, which reveals the network that stories and corn traveled on across North America. From this observation, I will now look at the role of these stories in being a teaching instrument or compass for readers and listeners.

The Power of Stories

According to Kimmerer, stories are among our most potent tools for restoring the land and our relationship to the land. She says that all stories are connected, new ones woven from the threads of the old (2013, 341). Corn, specifically, represents traditional knowledge about the protection of Mother Earth, and this knowledge has been very useful as threats against Mother Earth have intensified in recent decades. And not only is life and information passed down through the DNA of corn, or from a mother’s milk to her child, but knowledge about corn is passed down generations orally when parents talk to their children (Cojti).

Kimmerer says that stories can offer a corrective lens. Citing David Suzuki, she argues that Mayan stories can act as a lens to view our sacred relationships (344). Various peoples’ relationships to food and to each other shift over time, and in order to determine whether this shift is dangerous, we can look to stories as a compass. This is especially pertinent when stories like Selu’s, Blood Moon’s, and Skywoman’s engage with food when many people who now reside in North America have lost their relationship to food.

Contemporary Connections: Agriculture and Movements

Many communities continue to grow corn in the traditional way that honors the corn’s maternal qualities. These methods and practices are healthier for the earth than larger scale colonial agricultural techniques and are essential for familial and cultural longevity. Now that genetically modified corn has invaded native corn, community members argue that their native varieties will be harmed, thus harming their livelihoods and group identity. I will also explore the idea that genetic modification is a cultural and spiritual assault on Indigenous peoples and cultures. I will examine how these influences have played out in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Mexico.

Haudenosaunee corn

Corn appears in the epic text of the Great Law. This full rendition takes multiple days to tell, and it describes how the Confederacy was established. In the story, a Peacemaker emphasizes the power of reason over force and shows how people should treat each other, maintain a democracy, and preserve peace (“Haudenosaunee Guide for Educators” 2). In this epic, women and corn played key roles in the establishment of the Confederacy because a powerful corn grower told the women to stop feeding the warriors who were fighting (Mt. Pleasant 5). Here, we see that women are able to communicate with the guardians of corn. Corn also appears in the Thanksgiving Address, where the Haudenosaunee give thanks, respect, and care for their crop plants. According to Mt. Pleasant, in this Address, “all parts of the universe are related as members of an extended and caring family” (5). Here, again we see the connection between corn and extended family, thus making corn and humans not only related, but described in a relational system with different generational figures and a concept of descendants.

Community members and farmers plant many Haudenosaunee varieties today. Mt. Pleasant notes that she was able to plant this corn today because of the persistence and knowledgeable attention of Indigenous farmers who cultivated the corn across many generations (2). After Europeans arrived in North America, governments and churches urged and coerced women to give up their farm responsibilities to men, which transformed agricultural practices and family structures. In the 20th Century, Haudenosaunee communities reasserted their political and cultural sovereignty, which included revitalizing agricultural crops and corn varieties (14-15). Corn continues to be grown in many regions as a Three Sisters crop with beans and squash. The Three Sisters, notes Mt. Pleasant, are viewed as female members of the extended human family (5). With this information, I can see the relationship between women, corn, and intergenerationality continue to influence Haudenosaunee culture and agriculture as is seen in the story of Skywoman.

Mexican Corn

Many Southern Mexicans and/or Mayans practice ways of growing corn that are similar to the ways corn is engaged with in the creation stories. According to Rodríguez, Mexican farmers do not step on corn because it would be disrespecting their mother. Their ancestors affirm that the corn has ears and can hear when it is treated with respect (2014, 27). These practices are similar to the ideas of respecting (grand)mother Selu and Blood Moon. Many Mayans, when planting crops, use the milpa farming method that they have been using for thousands of years (Caduto & Bruchac 1996, 66-67). This includes soil and crop rotation techniques that are not only healthy for the earth, but engage with the idea of the earth as a mother.

To this day, Mayan communities ceremonially ask permission of the spirits of the valley and the mountains when choosing a field to plant corn and disturb the natural vegetation of the place (Teni, in Jose Barreiro 1989, 15). Everything that is done during the ceremony is not only significant within the culture, but often has positive agricultural impacts, such as warming the earth to ward off pests and enriching the soil with ash (15-16). Then, corn is looked after as if it is a living being or child that can suffer, talk, and cry. This allows family and harvest to be interrelated. If families do not pay attention to a harvest or waste corn, they will suffer. They liken this to how relatives must be attentive to a birthing woman’s needs or else the newborn, other children, and larger family will suffer (18). If they have enough space, they will also let the earth rest after each season similarly to how a woman rests for a few months after giving birth so there are no problems giving birth in the future (16). Family, corn, and harvest are interrelated, and corn mother is respected. Being able to look at the land and the corn in this way symbolizes the importance of the cycle and continuance of the family and prioritizes care for the land.

Politics and Genetically Modified Corn

Mexico has become increasingly dependent on corn imports from the U.S. In the 1900s, Mexico saw an increase in pressures from global north development programs and trade agreements that shifted farms. Now, small scale farms are becoming larger, more mechanized, monocrop, and full of corporate and capital-intensive inputs such as synthetic fertilizers and hybrid seed (Fitting 2011, 91-92). After the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1994, Mexico imported at least 10 million kg (or about 11,000 tons) of unlabelled genetically modified corn from the United States per year (Takezoe n.d.). According to Rodríguez, when the subsidized GM corn went south, the people went north, especially because people were unable to compete or subsist on traditional lands. This migration was not always safe, as thousands of people have died trying to cross the U.S. Mexico border (171). Now, those in the laboratory, the government, those who practice western scientific knowledge, and those who are simply foreigners control most of the agriculture and corn production in Mexico. Now cultural and environmental contexts don’t matter when the focus is now on inputs and yields (Fitting 92).

Genetically modified corn threatens native seed. GM corn, invented and sold by private-sector companies, is different because communities do not have a relationship to this corn. They have not planted it over generations and did not create different varieties to adapt to different climates. When I think about the difference between GM corn and native corn, I do not see GM corn having a relationship with its planters. Usually, families will plant generations of and many varieties of corn that are specific to them and their land’s needs. According to the Popol Vuh, this corn has been with Mayan communities in Mexico and Guatemala since the beginning of the shaping of humans and they are the people made from that corn. How can corn still be a mother when it is imported from a lab and it does not care for its children? I do not see this relationship for GM corn. Not only is it impossible to reproduce transgenic or hybrid seeds over many generations on your own, but this seed has created numerous social, economic, and political problems for people in Mexico. Commercial corn is not sacred (Rodríguez 173).

Consequences and Movements

When looking at Mexico, specifically, GM corn has harmed Indigenous Mayan bodies. As we have seen, corn is so much a part of the bodies and families of Quiché, Cherokee, and Haudenosaunee people. They are people of corn, corn mother is a relative, and corn is treated as a member of the family. Not only this, but these corn creation stories are told through generations and are a vital part of community identity.

There are many examples of this in Mexico. According to Mexican grassroots activist Gustavo Esteva, “To say that we are a people of corn is not a pretty metaphor, but rather, it is the state of things. Our life is associated with corn, and not just as a source of food. It defines a way of life and an affirmation of our relationship with Mother Earth,” (2020). Scientists have discovered GM corn genes in native corn varieties in Mexico (Yang 2001), thus further showing how GM corn has contaminated and overtaken native corn. One could argue that these actions by non-natives to impose GM corn are considered colonial harm done to Indigenous bodies.

Mexico has seen much activism to preserve native seed and resist GM corn. Organizations in Mexico created a Native Seed Bank Network to protect native seeds. They hope to save countless seed varieties that are disappearing but are part of their ancient and essential way of life. These seeds have the genetic code of millions of years of competition in nature and experiences of climate changes (Esteva). Other farmers have gathered from across Mexico to discuss the protection of native corn, and the movement, Sin Maíz No Hay País (Without Corn There Is No Country) has been active in Mexico for over 10 years (Rodríguez 51).

Art

Two artists worked directly with Indigenous stories to make statements about the shift in corn’s relationship to humans in North America. Neal Ambrose-Smith, a Salish artist, comments on GM corn in his piece, sey tu pn sqw llu (Now that’s a Coyote Story). In this piece, Coyote, the trickster, wears a winking mask, or maybe he has transformed himself. Ambrose-Smith says that he knows the importance of corn for the people. GM corn can be trickery, but how can the people accept it? “He sees that someone else is also crafty in his or her ways. Coyote sees all,” (2004). Behind the coyote’s face is a print of a corn cob and behind that, a close up of a nutrition label for what looks like Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Corn NK603. According to a small description on this label, this corn was designed to be tolerant to Roundup’s agricultural herbicides, thus linking the genetics of the plant to something so toxic, for-profit, and devastating to human health. This Roundup Ready Corn cannot possibly be anything close to the corn that shaped human life for generations, and yet, as Coyote notes, so many people are still using it.

Elizabeth James Perry, enrolled with the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head-Aquinnah, created Raven Reshapes Boston, which was a garden planted in front of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the fall of 2021. According to her statement, it is a nod to the Eastern Native story about the traditional knowledge keeper, Raven. Raven brought corn to the region for Native women to grow and sustain their families. Perry also discusses the Three Sisters garden and a billboard she designed that showed processes needed for healing inequality. The billboard had a wampum belt and raven on a cornstalk layered on top of images of five historic Native and Black women. Perry says that these women are “the bedrock of their communities from which all else is lifted up” (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Perry brings the connection between women, corn, and family sustenance to a public space to bring these relationships back to the land and back to the consciousnesses of the people who live and visit here. This garden is a reclamation of Boston as Indigenous land and honors the achievements of these women.

Conclusion

Corn would revert to its pre-human state in a few years if it weren’t for constant work from humans. Corn and its many varieties are our human legacy, and our human legacies and their many varieties are shaped by corn. I have learned that not only does corn shape the creation stories that are the undercurrent of the Indigenous cultures and practices of this land, but non-Native agriculturalists and the private sector are changing the genetics of corn and its relationship to people in a concerning way.

The arrival of GM corn, NAFTA, and other activities can be considered a destruction of the ability for Indigenous communities to grow native corn, which could also be considered an erasure of maize narratives and an assault on Native bodies. These narratives teach about relationality to corn and the connection between corn, motherhood, and the origin of identity, all of which are elements of a person. Like Awiakta said, from these stories and the nature of corn, people learn “survival wisdoms, common-sense ways of living in harmony with their environment and with each other. [...] Each story is itself a seed, where the spirit of corn, as well as her basic teachings, is concentrated” (19). When people so desperately want to make sense of this changing climate around us, we can look to these stories as a compass to reorient ourselves to corn, other than humans, and each other.

This piece was a final research paper for a class, Indigenous American Epics, 2021

Works Cited

Ambrose-Smith, Neal. Now That’s a Coyote Story (Sey Tu Pn Sqw Llu). 2004. Paper, ink, 56.7 x 75.7 cm. https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/objects/NMAI_282283?destination=edan_searchtab%3Fedan_q%3D%252A%253A%252A%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dobject_type%253A%2522Painting/Drawing/Print%2522%26edan_fq%255B1%255D%3Dname%253A%2522Ambrose-Smith%252C%2520Neal%2522.

Awiakta, Marilou. Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Pub, 1993.

Barreiro, Jose. “Indian Corn of the Americas: Gift to the World.” Northeast Indian Quarterly VI (1989).

Caduto, Michael J., and Joseph Bruchac. Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects, and Recipes for Families. Golden, Colo: Fulcrum Pub, 1996.

Cojti, Avexnim. “United in Tradition as Peoples of the Corn,” September 2019. http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/united-tradition-peoples-corn.

“Corn Woman, Video and Transcript | Hidden Drives.” Accessed November 19, 2021. https://hiddendrives.wordpress.amherst.edu/2021/02/26/corn-woman-video-and-transcript/.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “Dig into ‘Garden for Boston.’” Accessed November 19, 2021. https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/garden-for-boston/dig-into-garden-for-boston.

Esteva, Gustavo. “Milpa in Mexico: Defending a Way of Life.” Resilience, March 4, 2020. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-03-04/milpa-in-mexico-defending-a-way-of-life/.

Fitting, Elizabeth M. The Struggle for Maize: Campesinos, Workers, and Transgenic Corn in the Mexican Countryside. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.

“Haudenosaunee Guide for Educators.” NMAI, Smithsonian Institution, 2009. https://americanindian.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/HaudenosauneeGuide.pdf.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. First paperback edition. Minneapolis, Minn: Milkweed Editions, 2013.

Mt. Pleasant, Jane. Traditional Iroquois Corn: Its History, Cultivation, and Use. NRAES 179. Ithaca, NY: Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service, Cooperative Extension, 2010.

Rodríguez, Roberto Cintli. Our Sacred Maíz Is Our Mother: Indigeneity and Belonging in the Americas. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2014.

Savageau, Cheryl. Mother/Land. Salt, 2006.

Takezoe, Tom. “Red En Defensa Del Maíz - Network in Defense of Maize - Takes Place in Mexico.” Gaia Foundation, April 2, 2019. http://www.gaiafoundation.org/gaia-attends-the-red-en-defensa-del-maiz-network-in-defense-of-maize-in-mexico/.

Tedlock, Dennis, ed. Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Yang, Sarah. “Transgenic DNA Discovered in Native Mexican Corn, According to a New Study by UC Berkeley Researchers,” November 29, 2001. https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2001/11/29_corn.html.

Poem and Images for Reference

(Savageau 2006)