Mary Brandon Harrell

English- Kirschner
Block 1
16 August 2015
The Corn Story
A young Caddo boy was fooling around in the woods one day with some sticks. He came
across a large meadow that seemed to never of been touched. Little did that young Caddo know
that the land was sacred. If anyone set foot on this land their tribe would be cursed. Of coarse the
curious young Caddo ventured into the appealing meadow. After his first few steps into the land,
the skies turned black and it stormed. After a few minutes or so the storm cleared up and
everything was still. The sky was a gloomy purplish-gray and the boy wondered where this
sudden storm came from. As he began to walk back to the Caddo grounds he noticed something
that was quite peculiar. He noticed that there were no animal sounds coming from anywhere.
There were no birds, no insects, no squirrels. The deer tracks he had seen from earlier were even
gone, washed away by the rain he assumed. But the land here was so dry it seemed as if it hadnt
rained here at all.
When the boy returned to the Caddo grounds he observed that the land here also looked
as if it had been untouched by rain. All of the other Caddo were still doing their normal tasks as
if nothing ever happened. The young Caddo asked his mother if she had encountered the awful
downpour. When she replied that there had not been any storms here the boy grew very
confused. Why had their only been rain where he was?
The next few days the tribe became very troubled because they had not been able to find
any food to eat. Their usual ample supply of deer had not been seen for days. The mysterious

deer disappearance was not the only weird thing about the past couple of days. The tribe had not
spotted any form of animal life. The tribe grew weary as even more days went by without food.
Everyone was starving and something needed to be done. The young Caddo boy, who became
curious about this whole situation, remembered the story of the Great Eagle that his grandfather
had told him. He mentioned this to his mother who rolled it off at first. More days went by
without food and the young boy mentioned that they should call on the Great Eagle for help. The
tribes chief heard about the young boy and him telling of the Great Eagle. He too had been told
stories of the Great Eagle when he was a boy. The tribe was desperate for any food so the chief
decided that praying to the Great Eagle was their only shot. The chief recollected being told that
the Great Eagle only comes if everyone in the tribe comes around the fire at sunset and chants
certain spiritual words. So the tribe did. They prayed and prayed in hope that the Great Eagle
would come and save them from their starvation.
The next morning the young boy spotted a beautiful, majestic eagle flying in from the
west. He ran to get the Caddo chief, and got to him just as the spirited eagle landed. The chief
came out and talked to the eagle for a long while. Everyone in the tribe waited to hear the news.
The chief and the Great Eagle exchanged their last words and said their goodbyes. The Caddo
chief thanked him and thanked him. Just as the eagle began to fly away the chief gave news to
what the Great Eagle had told them. He showed the tribe the seeds the Great Eagle had given
him. He told the tribe how the Great Eagle told him to plant these seeds, water them, and watch
them grow. He said that these seeds were magical and would grow overnight to give them the
food that they needed. In the future though, these seeds would take longer to cultivate and grow.
The tribe cheered with excitement as each person was given certain tasks to plant the seeds.

The next morning the Caddo tribe was overjoyed to see rows and rows of long stalks of
grass coming from the ground. Everyone ran over to see what the Great Eagle had given the
tribe. As they unraveled the large stalks they uncovered a yellow vegetable. The Caddo named it
corn, as it resembles the world for the color yellow. The Caddo nation was ever so thankful for
their new crop and knew they could never ask anything of the Great Eagle ever again. From then
on corn and other agriculture thrived for the Caddo, and to this day is a large part of their culture.