Selu

The Corn Mother

Domain: Harvest, Plenty & Life
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Earth
Relics of Power: Ears of Life

Speak with Selu

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Native American peoples

Region

North America

Period

pre-colonial – present

These spirits and deities were worshipped by the many Native peoples of North America, from the Lakota to the Navajo and Iroquois. Their beliefs bind humans to the Great Spirit, to totem animals, and to balance with the land. Passed down orally, they survive in the Indigenous nations that endured colonization.

The Sun Dance gathered the Plains nations in fasting and sacrifice around the sacred tree. The Hopi dance with the kachinas, masked spirits of the rains, and the sacred pipe seals prayers and treaties — ceremonies still alive in today's nations.

At a glance

Selu (written in the Cherokee syllabary as ᏎᎷ, literally meaning 'maize' or 'corn') is the First Woman, the Corn Mother, and the foundational mythic figure of cultivated plant life in the traditional cosmology of the Cherokee Nation (Tsalagi). In sacred narratives recorded by anthropologist James Mooney from native healers Swimmer (Aʻyûñ′inĭ) and John Ax (Itagû′nûhĭ), as well as in the indigenous Wahnenauhi Manuscript written by Lucy Lowrey Keys, Selu dwelt with her husband Kanati (the Lucky Hunter and First Man) on the mountain slopes around Pilot Knob. While Kanati supplied game animals from a hidden rock cave, Selu provided baskets of corn and beans from her storehouse. Spied on by her two sons—her elder boy and the Wild Boy (Inage-usasdi)—who grew suspicious of how she brought forth corn and beans from her own body, Selu was slain by the boys who mistook her generative power for witchcraft. Knowing her destiny beforehand, Selu instructed them to clear a plot of land and drag her decapitated body across the earth seven times; wherever her blood touched the ground, lush stalks of corn sprouted. The myth provides both the sacred origin of corn agriculture and the ideological foundation for female ownership of fields within matrilineal Cherokee clan organization.

5 min read · Reviewed on September 29, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The corn, the basket of grain, the storehouse and the blood upon the soil

Family

Selu

Unions

Kanati (The Lucky Hunter / First Man)

Children

The Twin Boys (The Elder Son and the Wild Boy / Inage-usasdi, who later became the Thunder Boys)

Genealogy according to James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (1900, pp. 242–249, 323–324); Jack Frederick Kilpatrick (ed.), The Wahnenauhi Manuscript: Historical Sketches of the Cherokees (1966, pp. 179–181); Theda Perdue, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700–1835 (1998, cap. 1); Charles M. Hudson, The Southeastern Indians (1976, pp. 148–152)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Mooney, James, Myths of the Cherokee: Sacred Legends, BAE 19th Report, Pt. 1 (pp. 242–249, 323–324). translation: Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900. read
Mooney, James, Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, BAE 7th Report, pp. 301–397. translation: Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1891. read
Wahnenauhi (Lucy Lowrey Keys), The Wahnenauhi Manuscript: Historical Sketches of the Cherokees Together with Some of Their Customs, Traditions, and Superstitions (ed. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick). translation: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 196, Washington, 1966. read

Studies

Hudson, Charles M., The Southeastern Indians (Cosmology and Social Structure). Univ. of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1976. open
Perdue, Theda, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700–1835. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. open

Name and epithets

The Cherokee theonym ᏎᎷ (Selu) is the regular vernacular noun for maize (Zea mays). By naming the primordial First Woman after the essential staple crop of the Southeastern woodlands, Cherokee linguistics articulates an…

In the ancient sources

Myths of the Cherokee, 1900 CE. James Mooney's authoritative ethnographic record of oral traditions told by Eastern Cherokee priests Swimmer and John Ax. The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, 1891 CE.

The myths

The Mystery of the Storehouse and the Sacrifice of Selu. As recorded in James Mooney's foundational compilation from the accounts of Swimmer and John Ax, Kanati and Selu lived near Pilot Knob with their young boy.

Worship and archaeology

Veneration of Selu was centered on the Green Corn Ceremony (Selu O-ji), the most pivotal annual event of the traditional Cherokee liturgical year.

How the god was depicted

Cherokee material culture represented Selu not through painted idols or statues, but through the vital implements of maize production: the carved wooden mortar (kanona) and pestle, intricate double-woven river cane bask…

What scholars debate

. In Southeastern Native studies, prominent historians including Theda Perdue and Charles M. Hudson emphasize that the myth of Selu served as the structural blueprint for Cherokee matrilineal descent and matrilocal resi…

After antiquity

In modern Indigenous literature, celebrated Cherokee author Marilou Awiakta published 'Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother's Wisdom' (1993), weaving ancestral teachings about the Corn Mother into modern discussions of ecologi…

Did you know?

Cherokee ceremonial practice associated with Selu consistently incorporates the sacred number seven, symbolizing the seven Cherokee clans (Wolf, Bird, Paint, Deer, Long Hair, Wild Potato, and Blue).

Codex relic

Ears of Life. The ears of corn born from her own body, the eternal sustenance of the Cherokee people.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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