Which Crop Was the Most Important to the Mayans?

Origin Myth of Corn

The ancient Mayans believed that corn was originally hidden from mankind under a mountain or a large rock, and was only accessible to ants. According to the myth, the existence of corn was revealed to the Mayans by animals, though the exact species varies in different versions of the story. The Mayans went to the gods for assistance in retrieving the corn for their own use. The god Chaac employed the assistance of a woodpecker to help men remove the corn from the mountain.

Corn had a very deep religious significance to the Mayan people. It was believed that the gods created man from corn flour and the blood of the gods, making them literally children of the corn. They Mayan god of corn was depicted as a young man with flowing hair, representing corn silk. He was portrayed as a defenseless god, helpless against attack from birds, insects and other creatures. This symbolized the fragile nature of corn, a crop that depends entirely on human cultivation for its reproduction.

Corn crops produced higher yields than any other crop in the Mayan civilization, and corn was an important staple food for Mayans of all classes and castes. Corn still accounts for as much as 70 percent of the food consumed in communities of modern Mayan descendants. Corn is a good source of carbohydrates. Corn enabled the Mayans to eat a nutritionally complete diet when it was combined with other common Mayan foods such as beans, squash and peppers.

Corn remains an important crop to the modern descendants of the Mayans, as it does for much of the world. In the United States, 80 million acres corn was planted in 2010. While some of that corn is consumed directly by people, the majority of it is used to feed livestock. Some is used to make corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil and ethanol fuel. Twenty percent of the corn grown in the United States is exported to other countries.