Green corn ceremonialism in the eastern woodlands

Summary: Since the technology centered about maize shows a rather similar basic pattern throughout the eastern United States and a somewhat different pattern from that of other areas, a comparative study of nonmaterial aspects of maize agriculture might be justifiable. Unfortunately, as I have previously indicated, material for such a study is rather sparse in comparison to the information on many other phases of the cultures of this area. Perhaps future ethnographic study may contribute enough data to make such a survey more feasible, but the amount of survival of aboriginal traits of this sort may be very small. For this reason I intend to restrict this study to one particular ritual, the one about which most is known and which seems to have been of major significance. There are enough data from most parts of the eastern United States to indicate that three major festivals were immediately concerned with the cultivation of corn, but in few areas is there further information. Two of these ceremonies, the planting ceremony and the harvest festival, seem to have been of secondary importance and did not attract much attention among observers. The so-called green corn dance, however, seems to have been the most significant to the aborigines, and much fuller accounts of it from several areas exist. Recent ethnographic studies of this ceremony from several tribes have also been made, and there is a sense of its homogeneity throughout fairly large geographic areas. It was a ceremony held when the green corn was first edible, and, at least in some areas, marked a major division of the year. The time of its occurrence would make historical connection between the same rite in different areas more likely, for the coincidence of such rites as planting and harvest festivals as parallel developments in different cultures would be more expected. It is surprising that neither of these rituals was selected for the place of first importance... - Amazon