What does the story of the first mother suggest about the significance of corn, tobacco, and motherhood among the Penobscot? [Be sure to discuss each of them separately and with sufficient detail!]

According to the Penobscot of the United States, First Woman greeted great Spirit and First Man with the following words: "Children, I have come to dwell with you and to bring you love." As soon as she populated the world with many offspring, famine struck, and seeing that her children were miserable, she convinced her husband to cut her body into pieces and drag her through a field before burying her bones in the middle. As she promised, seven months later the field was filled with corn that her children were fed on. The first woman said that the corn was her flesh and that they should return some of it to the earth to perpetuate it. Her bones produced the tobacco that was a symbol of peace for the American Indians.

Explanation:

For the movements of the goddess, this myth illustrates the predominance of the female divinity. Her incarnations as corn and tobacco demonstrate the principle of regeneration inherent in the universal mysteries about the goddess and the social value of generosity.

The act of First Woman appears in many myths about the mother goddess and the ritual by which she is dragged through a field is repeated in other European and American mythologies.