A long time ago it thus happened. In the very beginning a crow got a single grain of corn from across the great water, brought it to this country and gave it to an orphan child, who was playing in the yard. The child named it _tauchi_, (corn). He planted it in the yard. When the corn was growing up, the child's elders merely had it swept around. But the child, wishing to have his own way, hoed it, hilled it, and laid it by. When this single grain of corn grew up and matured, it made two ears of corn. And in this way the ancestors of the Choctaws discovered corn. "The great water" referred to in the above myth is the Gulf of Mexico. "Okachito," "great water," is the term invariably applied by the Mississippi Choctaws to the Gulf. If there are any traces of historic truth in the myth, we may infer that it contains a tradition of the introduction of corn into the Choctaw country across the Gulf of Mexico, from South America or from the West Indies. Professor J. W. Harshberger, in his monograph on the nativity and distribution of maize concludes that its earliest home was in Central America, whence it spread north and south over the continents of America. In his map in which he gives the lines of travel by which maize was distributed, he has two lines in South America. One of these lines extends southward between the Andes and the Pacific as far down as Chili. The second line, after leaving the Isthmus of Panama, goes eastward along the north coast of South America until it enters Venezuela. From Venezuela, it goes to the West Indies and from the West Indies to Florida. This line of maize distribution harmonizes with the Choctaw tradition embodied in the myth that maize came into the Choctaw country from across "the great water," that is, from across the Gulf of Mexico. We learn from the early Spanish writers that there was intercommunication between the natives of Cuba and those of Florida. This being the case, corn could have been introduced among the pre-historic peoples of the Gulf states, across the Gulf, directly or indirectly from South America. To add completeness to the matter, according to Professor Harshberger's map, maize was introduced among the ancient peoples of the States lying north of the Gulf States by a line of distribution running from northern Mexico. It may be still further added that maize was certainly introduced into the Gulf States and into the Mississippi Valley before the beginning of the mound-building era, for only a sedentary agricultural people were capable of building the mounds.