Hi everyone. I'm Josh, and this is The Emerald,

currents and trends through a mythic lens. The podcast where we explore an ever-changing world

and our lives in it through the lens of myth, story, and imagination.

The Emerald. All that's happening on this green jewel in space. Here's an account from Frey Bernardino de Saghun, a Franciscan friar who observed a native Mesoamerican ritual in the early 1500s.

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At a great festival in September, which was preceded by a strict fast of seven days, the villagers sanctified a young slave girl of 12 or 13 years, the prettiest they

could find, to represent the corn goddess Chico Mecha Hwatl.

They invested her with the ornaments of the goddess, putting a scarf on her head and corn cobs round her neck and in her hands, and fastening a green feather upright on the crown of her

head to imitate an ear of corn.

This they did, we are told, in order to signify that the corn was almost ripe at the

time of the festival, but because it was still tender, they chose a girl of tender years

to play the part of the corn goddess. The whole long day they led the child in all her finery,

with the green plume nodding on her head, from house to house dancing merrily to cheer people after the dullness

and privations of the fast. In the evening, all the people assembled at the temple, the courts of which

they lit up by a multitude of lanterns and candles. There they passed the night without sleeping,

and at midnight, while the trumpets, flutes, and horns discoursed solemn music,

a portable frame, or palanquin, was brought forth, bedecked with festoons of corncobs and peppers,

and filled with seeds of all sorts. This the bearers set down at the door of the chamber,

in which the wooden image of the goddess stood. Now the chamber was adorned,

both outside and inside, with wreaths of corncobs, peppers, pumpkins, roses, and seeds of every kind,

a wonder to behold. The whole floor was covered deep with these verdant offerings of the pious.

When the music ceased, a solemn procession came forth of priests and dignitaries,

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