Indian maize, sprang up of itself from the earth
and filled the air with its fringed tassels and
whispering leaves. With Onatah walked her two
sisters, the Spirits of the Squash and the Bean. As
they passed by, squash-vines and bean-plants
grew from the corn-hills.

One day Onatah wandered away alone in search
of early dew. Then the Evil One of the earth,
Hahgwehdaetgah, followed swiftly after. He
grasped her by the hair and dragged her beneath
the ground down to his gloomy cave. Then, sending
out his fire-breathing monsters, he blighted
Onatah's grain. And when her sisters, the Spirits
of the Squash and the Bean, saw the flame-
monsters raging through the fields, they flew far
away in terror.

As for poor Onatah, she lay a trembling captive
in the dark prison-cave of the Evil One. She
mourned the blight of her cornfields, and sorrowed
over her runaway sisters.

``O warm, bright sun!'' she cried, ``if I may
walk once more upon the earth, never again will I
leave my corn!''

And the little birds of the air heard her cry, and
winging their way upward they carried her vow
and gave it to the sun as he wandered through the