Part 1 - Agricultural origins in the New World. Two agricultural systems. From nomadism to seed gardening. Part 2 - North American agriculturalist rites and myths. The Iroquois. The Algonquians. Tales of the northeast woodland. The people of the trail of tears. The origin of maize and game.

'Combining and putting into perspective the work of specialists in botany, archaeology, ethnology, and geography, Campbell provides a thorough and insightful examination of the mythologies of the earliest agricultural communities in the New World, where two distinct agricultural traditions simultaneously developed: one (predominantly northern) that cultivated maize and other seed crops and a second dependant upon plants propagated by runners and cuttings, like the sweet potato.'

Hardcover