of children, but of old 'the Maiden' was a regular image of the
harvest goddess, which, with a sickle and sheaves in her arms,
attended by a crowd of reapers, and accompanied with music, followed
the last carts home to the farm.[12] It is odd enough that 'the
Maiden' should exactly translate ~Kore~, the old Sicilian name of the
daughter of Demeter. 'The Maiden' has dwindled, then, among us to the
rudimentary kernababy; but ancient Peru had her own Maiden, her
Harvest Goddess. Here it is easy to trace the natural idea at the
basis of the superstitious practice which links the shores of the
Pacific with our own northern coast. Just as a portion of the yule-log
and of the Christmas bread were kept all the year through, a kind of
nest-egg of plenteous food and fire, so the kernababy, English or
Peruvian, is an earnest that corn will not fail all through the year,
till next harvest comes. For this reason the kernababy used to be
treasured from autumn's end to autumn's end, though now it commonly
disappears very soon after the harvest home. It is thus that Acosta
describes in Grimston's old translation (1604) the Peruvian kernababy
and the Peruvian harvest home:--

This feast is made comming from the chacra or farme unto the
house, saying certaine songs, and praying that the Mays
(maize) may long continue, the which they call _Mama cora_.

What a chance this word offers to etymologists of the old school: how
promptly they would recognise, in _mama_ mother--~meter~, and in
_cora_--~kore~, the Mother and the Maiden, the feast of Demeter and
Persephone! However, the days of that old school of antiquarianism are
numbered. To return to the Peruvian harvest home:--

They take a certaine portion of the most fruitefull of the
Mays that growes in their farmes, the which they put in a
certaine granary which they do calle Pirua, with certaine
ceremonies, watching three nightes; they put this Mays in the
richest garments they have, and, being thus wrapped and
dressed, they worship this Pirua, and hold it in great
veneration, saying it is the Mother of the Mays of their
inheritances, and that by this means the Mays augments and is
preserved. In this moneth they make a particular sacrifice,
and the witches demand of this Pirua, 'if it hath strength
sufficient to continue until the next yeare,' and if it
answers 'no,' then they carry this Mays to the farme to
burne, whenc