Most festivals are seasonal, linked to time and place. If we want to know what the natural activities were around here at this time of year, we can look to the traditions of the Seneca Indians, the natives of this region. August is the time of the first harvests of early crops here in Western New York. The Senecas held their Green Corn Dance at this time.

 The celebration was held in the second half of summer, when the green corn was ready. Green corn is milk corn; undeveloped white corn filled with sweet liquid. The Indians had two corn festivals. One was the Green Corn Dance held sometime in August. The other was the Gathering the Corn Festival, held later when the corn was fully matured and ready to dry or make into cornmeal for the winter.

 In preparation for the Green Corn Festival, the Seneca men would go on a hunting trip. Their prey were deer or bear for use in the soups for the feast. While the men were away, the women would begin cooking. After the men returned with the game, the celebration began. There were four days of dancing, feasting, and gambling. The gambling was part of the ceremony; and jewelry, bead work, and war clubs were used for betting. The women often played against the men of the tribe.

Green corn was cooked in various forms for the feast. It was picked before ripe and boiled or roasted in the husk. One method was to build a long, narrow fire trench. A log was placed lengthwise over the trench. Corn in the husk was leaned against the log on both sides and roasted over the coals in the trench.

 Succotash was always served at the Green Corn Festival. It was made by scraping the milky kernels off green corn cobs which were almost ripe. The Senecas used deer jaw bones for scraping. Their name for the bone scraper was "green corn", and the user would say, "I am letting the deer chew the corn first for me." After scraping off the kernels, the corn was pounded. Then the corn milk obtained from the scraping and pounding was added to the boiling soup. The other ingredients were bear or deer meat and vegetables in season at that time, especially green beans and squash. Thus the Three Sisters of the Senecas, their staple foods of corn, squash, and beans, were all included in Succotash.

 Another dish served at the festival was Green Corn Leaf Bread. The corn was scraped off and folded into a corn leaf. Sometimes cooked green beans, berries, chopped apples or meat were also added. Then it was wrapped securely with more corn leaves and tied with a string of bark and boiled. After cooking, the packages were broken open and the contents eaten with bear's grease or sunflower oil.

Although you won't find a Green Corn Festival held here today, we certainly do enjoy the fresh corn in the area at this time of year. We're including a modern day recipe for succotash in this issue under Edibles. It's a vegetarian version, just in case you're short of bear meat. We'll also allow you a knife to cut off the corn kernels, if you don't have a good deer jawbone at hand. We insist on authenticity only in regards to the main ingredient: fresh locally grown corn. Enjoy!

Sources:

Myths of the Iroquois, by E. A. Smith, 1883, reprinted by Iroqrafts Ltd., 1989.

Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation, by F.W. Waugh, 1916, reprinted by Iroqrafts Ltd., 1991.