Note 5 — Chapter I · TRADITION
Reading edition
“In the garden vegetable family are five; corn, beans, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco. The seeds of all these plants were brought up from beneath the ground by the Mandan people.
“Now the corn, as we believe, has an enemy—the sun who tries to burn the corn. But at night, when the sun has gone down, the corn has magic power. It is the corn that brings the night moistures—the early morning mist and fog, and the dew—as you can see yourself in the morning from the water dripping from the corn leaves. Thus the corn grows and keeps on until it is ripe.
“The sun may scorch the corn and try hard to dry it up, but the corn takes care of itself, bringing the moistures that make the corn, and also the beans, sunflowers, squashes, and tobacco grow.
“The corn possesses all this magic power.
“When you white people met our Mandan people we gave to the whites the name Maci´, or Waci´, meaning nice people, or pretty people. We called them by this name because they had white faces and wore fine clothes. We said also ‘We will call these people our friends!’ And from that time to this we have never made war on white men.
“Our Mandan corn must now be all over the world, for we gave the white men our seeds. And so it seems we Mandans have helped every people. But the seed of our varieties of corn were originally ours.
“We know that white men must also have had corn seed, for their corn is different from ours. But all we older folk can tell our native corn from that of white men.”—Wounded Face (Mandan)