I'm reading the Golden Bough by James Frazer and I keep coming across references to ancient Greeks and Romans worshipping goddesses of corn. And magic rituals aimed to bring about a large corn harvest. But. Corn? Maize? What? I thought that corn was an import from the new world? What is this ancient Greek stuff? At first, I was thinking that this kinda shows that Frazer was off his rocker and if he was wrong about such a simple thing as this, what else is he wrong about. Well. I just spent some google time and what do you know? Demeter is Goddess of Corn? As is Roman Ceres. I'm totally confused right now. I was like 100% certain that corn was a North American crop that was introduced to the Old World after Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. What the hell is going on with corn? I just did a wikipedia search on corn and found this: * In England, corn means wheat, although the word often retains its generic meaning there. * In Scotland, corn may refer to oats. So. Is it that simple? When corn is mentioned in regards to Demeter and Ceres and ancient Europeans they actually mean wheat or oats? So. Why use the word corn? How many people today actually use the word corn for wheat or oats? Corn is maize, isn't it?
Corn used to refer to anything small and hard. Anything in a kernal, nuts, etc. Probably includes any grain. Anyway, its almost certainly a mistranslation. What was the word in the original Greek?
The Golden Bough is not that old a book. It was written in the early 20th century (or perhaps the late 19th. I know that the earliest editions were the early 1900's. Like 1905 or something like that. And it grew over time.) I'm reading the 1922 abridged version which is the only version available on the net. (I'd really love to see the unabridged version. It sounds like a monster.) However, I'm sure the original description of Demeter was derived from Greek... of course. Heh. And Ceres was from Latin. I don't know what the original words were. But, mention of corn seems pretty common in her description. At least from my brief googling last night. I don't seem to recall corn from my earlier mythology phase in life, but that was a while ago and the significance of corn might not have affected me at that time. However, I suspect that the issue is that wheat is called corn in England. Is it still that way? They really call wheat corn? Weird. The Golden Bough, by the way, is a very interesting book. It deals with the oddity of the ascension of the Priest of Diana at her temple at the lake of Nelim, Diana's Mirror. It seems that by tradition, the only way to become priest is to remove a branch from a certain tree which then means that you can fight the priest and if you kill him then you become the new priest and must spend your days in vigilance lest someone else cut a bough from the tree and end your reign as King of the Wood. It delves into the topic of sacrifice throughout various world cultures. The role of king as sacrifice victim. I understand that much of the anthropology is outdated and not altogether accurate, but is nonetheless an interesting read.
The Golden Bough was originally published in 1890, when if you spoke of corn in England you meant wheat. I would say that was still generally true sixty years later. In more recent decades, the word hs dropped out of usage because of confusion with the American meaning of the word. I would regard it as unusual in England for anyone to refer either to wheat OR to maize as corn these days. Since the word "Cereal" is derived from "Ceres", it may be that the goddesses of the ancient world were responsible for wheat, barley, oats, rye and millet. Maize and sorghum were surely beyond their realm.
and Demeter wasn't just the goddess of Corn. being the goddess of Earth in particular "the various grains"... I'm following the crowd in saying that corn has had various meanings, but its all learning off the wall facts, so...
and in german you have 'korn' wheat in english. that used to confuse me, years ago ursula Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
My understanding is that corn is maize only in American english. For all other english speakers corn is grain. (wheat, barley etc.)
google the "columbian exchange", look here: "corn" seems to have been an early generic term for grain. not sure what Brits call maize now, but there was no way they knew what maize was until after 1492
Brits call "maize" corn, and nothing else. When it became a major export from the colonies, they probably began calling maize by that name, more exclusively.
I've been reading a book called "The Closing of the Western Mind"-- by Charles Freeman-- fairly exhaustive history of the Christianity. It claims that Constantine's sudden conversion killed off the Greek tradition of empiricism-- replacing it with a complete trust in the Bible and the Church. Of course, this led to 1000 years of benighted dark ages. It's a pretty big claim, and I've been keeping my eyes open for sloppy scholarship-- and thought I had caught him on this Demeter as goddess of corn. From what I've gathered, most of the information says she is goddess of wheat, barley, and corn-- seems some basic facts are generally falling away
Yes, corn actually means wheat or grain. Ceres lent her name to cereals. Demetriaka means grainy, wheaty, corny type food in Greek, or again, cereals.
that is one theory, here's more: http://www.ees1.lanl.gov/Wohletz/Krakatau.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages that claim, in and of itself, is so biased & eurocentric, it negates the million little pieces that led to a European so-called "dark ages", but left most of the rest of the world in its golden ages; see T'ang China for one if you go to the source, you find that the word "corn" meant something diff prior to 1611, than what it meant in 1850 or now http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=corn&searchmode=none
