Yum Kaax

The youthful lord of the maize and the wild vegetation, he is the delicate soul of the corn who must be protected from the predators of the forest and the heat of the sun. He represents the vulnerability of life and the constant labor required to sustain civilization against the encroaching wilderness. Why do we treat the earth as an enemy when the very grain of our bodies is a gift from his leafy hands? He is the spirit of the milpa, the god of the shifting fields who dances between the cultivated and the wild.