I found another, far less violent version of the story from Jean Ritchie:
These bluegrass people, always trying to turn things into a murder ballad! But it's possible they have a point. Inability to garden could be linked to emotional issues. In Martin Prechtel's
The Unlikely Peace of Cuchumaquic, he relates the story of being approached by a young woman with suicidal thoughts who was desperate for some advice. What he said (through the haze of a migraine) was, in Mayan culture, suicidal thoughts tend to be the result of applying oneself to unsuitable pursuits for too long. (I'll have to find the original quote maybe? That's as I remember.) Somewhere in the conversation, annoyed and in pain, he said he bet she was too lazy to grow corn, and gave her a kernel (or more? It was a year ago I read it.)
The next time he saw her, she was married, with a young child, and carrying sacks of corn in unexpectedly at a talk he was giving, and when he asked about the suicidal thoughts it didn't even register; she had forgotten about them.
2
