1937

Meanwhile the first man and the first woman wandered under the earth. One day they found a great pile of millet in a corner. Beside it lay piles of barley and wheat and seeds of all the food plants. A pile of everything lay in a corner.

The first man and the first woman looked at the seeds and asked, "What does this mean?"

An ant was running along beside the piles of seeds. The first man and the first woman saw the ant. The ant removed a grain of wheat from its husk. The ant ate the grain of wheat.

The first man asked, "What is the ant doing?"

The woman said, "Kill it! Kill the ugly creature!"

The man said, "Why should I kill it? Someone created it just as someone created us."

The man did nothing to the ant but watched it instead.

The first man asked the ant, "Tell me what you are doing. Can you tell me anything about the millet and the barley and these other seeds?"

The ant said, "I will ask you something. Do you know of a spring, of a brook or of a river?"

The first man said, "No, we know only the well."

The ant said, "Then you know what water is. The water is there so that one may wash one's self and one's clothing. The water is there that one may drink. It is also there that one may cook one's food. All this grain is good if one cooks it in water. Now come with me. I will show you and the first woman everything."

The first man said, "We will come with you."

The ant led the first parents to its hole which led from under the earth to the earth's surface.

The ant said, "This is my path, come on my path with me."

The ant led the first parents through the passageway and on up to the surface. The ant led them to a river and said, "Here flows the water in which you may wash yourselves and your clothing and which you may drink. This is the water with which you cook your corn after you have ground it."

The ant led the first parents to some stones and said, "These are the stones with which you grind the corn to meal."

The ant showed them how to lay one stone on the other and how to insert a stick in order to turn the upper stone. The ant showed them how the grain should lie between the two stones. The ant said to the first parents, "This is a house-mill. With it you must grind the grain to meal." The ant helped the first human beings to grind the corn.

The ant showed the first woman how to make dough with water and meal and how to knead it. The ant said to the first woman, "Now you must make a fire." The ant took two stones from the river bed and took some dried plants and said, "This is a fire tool." The ant also brought dried grass and wood.

The ant struck a fire with the flint and threw wood and twigs on it.

The ant said to the first woman, "When the fire has grown strong and large and has become a heap of glowing ashes you must clear it to one side. On the hot place you must lay your flat cakes of kneaded dough. Then cover them up and throw the hot ashes and the glowing coals over them. After a while the bread will be cooked and you will be able to eat it."

The first woman did what the ant had told her. And when she had cleared away the ashes for the second time the bread was done. The first man and the first woman ate the bread and said, "Now we have full stomachs."

The first man said to the woman, "Come, we will take a look at the earth."

The first man and the first woman took plenty of barley and wheat with them, and they took the millstones with them and they wandered over the earth. On the way they lost, here and there, a few grains of wheat and barley. Rain fell. The grain which had fallen to the ground took root, grew and bore fruit. The first parents came to the place where the forty-nine young men had built houses and where they lived with the forty-nine maidens as their wives. Till then the forty-nine young men and the forty-nine maidens had eaten only plants which they plucked from the earth. The first parents showed them how to make bread even as they had learned it from the ant. The forty-nine young men and women ate their first bread.

They told their parents, "This food is very good. We would like to accompany you to the place where you found the ant and the grain in order to fetch some more of it."

The first parents went back with the forty-nine young men and their wives.

On the way back they saw the wheat and barley which had sprung up out of the grain which they had lost and which had fallen to the ground.

They said, "That is the same grain which the ant showed us how to cook and eat." They grubbed up the earth and found that each plant had grown up out of a single grain.

They said, "Every grain which fell to the earth has brought forth twenty to thirty grains. In future we will eat half our grain and put the other half in the earth."

They threw half of their grain on the earth. But it was the dry season and the sun burned. The corn didn't grow. They waited and waited but the corn did not appear.

Thereupon, they went to the ant and said, "When we let a few grains fall for the first time they took root and grew and each grain produced twenty and thirty others. Now we have thrown grain on to the earth again, and not a single stalk has appeared. What is the reason?"

The ant answered, "You have not chosen the right season. After it has been hot for a long time you must wait till rain has fallen. When the earth is damp then throw in your corn. And then it will rain again and you will enjoy a rich harvest. But if you throw your grain on the earth in the hot season it will bum up and you will harvest nothing, for the grain will have been dried up."

And the human beings said, "Aha, so one must do it that way!"

Men thereafter did as the ant had taught them. They sowed half their grain after the first rains had fallen. The grain waxed and each stalk bore twenty-fold and thirty-fold. And the other half of their grain they ate.