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:
“I passed a tomb among green shades
Where seven anemones with down-dropped heads
Wept tears of dew upon the stone beneath.”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)
“Cole’s Hill was the scene of the secret night burials of those who died during the first year of the settlement. Corn was planted over their graves so that the Indians should not know how many of their number had perished.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“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)