The Green Corn Ceremony (Cherokee: ᎠᎦᏪᎳ ᏎᎷᎤᏥ) is an English term that refers to a general religious and social theme celebrated by a number of American Indian peoples of the Eastern Woodlands and the Southeastern tribes. The Green Corn festivals are also known to have been practiced by the Mississippian culture people as part of their Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
Green Corn festivals are still practiced today by many different native peoples of the Southeastern Woodland Culture. The Green Corn Ceremony typically coincides in the late summer and is tied to the ripening of the corn crops. The ceremony is marked with dancing, feasting, fasting and religious observations.
Famous quotes containing the words green, corn and/or ceremony:
“We are born with luck
which is to say with gold in our mouth.
As new and smooth as a grape,
as pure as a pond in Alaska,
as good as the stem of a green bean
we are born and that ought to be enough....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye.”
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960)
“No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs,
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)