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The Green Corn Festival
by W.Holidays
 The
Green Corn Festival, Dance, or Ceremony is a Native American harvest
celebration. Creek, Cherokee, Seminole, Yuchi, and Iroquois Indians, as
well as, other Native American tribes celebrate this ceremony in some
manner.
The ceremony is typically held during the full moon when the first corn
crop is ready to harvest. The exact date cannot be determined ahead of
time; it's all up to the corn. It is a time of thanks and forgiveness.
Thanks for the crops and old grudges are forgiven. The ceremony lasts
for several days. The holy man, as a symbol of health, life, and
spiritual power, tends a sacred fire. The first few days are known as
the Busk. People fast, cleanse themselves, and their homes. Men
and women then drink an herbal concoction, the "Black Drink" that helps
cleanse and purify their bodies (it induces vomiting). Finally, the
first corn harvest is tasted followed by dancing, singing, playing, and
feasting. Many foods are included in the feast with an emphasis on
corn: roast corn, corn tortillas, corn soup, corn bread….
A ball game is quite popular in which teams of boys and girls try to
hit a target on a large pole, the original source of lacrosse. The game
varies, of course, from tribe to tribe.
The Creek Indian women perform the Ribbon Dance. Women adorned with
vivid ribbons, rattles, and shells dance for three hours. Four women
who have been appointed (for life) by the elders of the tribe do the
dance.
The Santa Ana Pueblo, located sixteen miles north of Albuquerque, (New
Mexico, USA) has an annual feast day, open to the public, on July 26th
with a green corn dance and fiesta.
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