Corn and the Native Americans:
A brief journey through the maize

Humanities 215-V1
Native American Cultures
Larry Jent
April 12, 2012

Throughout the history of Native American culture corn has played a vital role in many facets of life for a multitude of people in various ways. It is not merely a simple grain or vegetable, it is a sacred gift to all people. Not only does it nourish one physically and provide for material use, but it is also an important spiritual tool. Corn plays a vital role in Native American culture. It is an agricultural mainstay, is integral to many ceremonies, honored in many celebrations throughout many tribes, and is credited with nourishing the nation physically as well as spiritually through various myths and legend.
Food for Thought Corn was one of the first domesticated crops by the native people. “Over a seven-thousand-year period, Indian people domesticated hundreds of kinds of maize, beginning in the semiarid highlands of Mexico with a common wild grass called teosinte” (Ballantine 60). “The teosinte pollen, carried by the wind to other corn like grasses, produced a hybrid whose cultivation helped ensure a stable food supply” (Maxwell 44). With the ability to reproduce food in a single location it was easier for people to settle in certain areas. This provided for a more domesticated way of living and a steady source of nourishment. Corn could be used immediately, dried for later use, the seeds saved to perpetuate the crop, and the inedible parts provided many uses for raw material. Natives went to great lengths to protect their precious crop. They used themselves as living scarecrows to scare off potential predators, banging metal pans and waving cloths, building bonfires, and harboring natural predators. “[Hidatsa] Women and children hoed the fields, constructed sunshades for young corn, and kept watch over the crops to prevent damage from birds, stray horses, deer, rabbits and other animals” (Carlson 55). Omaha tribes commonly chewed corn seeds and scattered them about the field to ward off damaging black birds. After all, if the crop could not be protected, their pantry would be bare. Throughout time and still today corn is used for a variety of purposes in the native kitchen. The ear can be eaten fresh, the kernels saved and dried, or the dried corn pounded into meal. It has a myriad of uses as a vegetable on its own or as Moerman documents, in soups, breads, cakes, porridges, pies, puddings, sauces, relishes, sweeteners, substitutes, and snack foods. In the Isleta culture ground corn [is] used to make a slightly intoxicating beverage.” (611) The versatility of corn has provided an amazing staple for the native people of all nations. Banaha Choctaw Corn Shuck Bread 6 c Corn meal 2 ts Baking soda Boiling water Corn shucks

Pour enough boiling water over the meal and soda mixture to make asoft dough which can be handled with the hands. Prepare 4 to 6 handfuls of corn shucks by pouring boiling water over them to cover, then strip a few shucks to make strings. Tie 2 strips together at ends. Lay an oval shaped ball of dough on shucks. Fold carefully and tie in the middle with strings. Place in large stew pot and boil 30 to 45 minutes. (ocbtracker.com)

When not used for food the corn plant is implemented for it’s healing properties by many tribes. Each nation’s medicine man has a different use for the plant and it can heal multiple ailments. A poultice could be made for a cough or a headache. The ear or cob itself could be rubbed on swellings and bruises. Cornmeal could be mixed with water to treat a variety of internal ailments. The oil is used as a dermatological ointment for dandruff, chapped skin or bee stings. The silt could be brewed in a tea to treat dreadfully painful “kidney gravels”. The Navajo in particular use the corn for their Night Chant medicine. It “consists of a mixture of blue pollen, wild plants, and tobacco to which was added the leaves from corn plants gathered in the east, south, west, and north corners of the field, squash form the southeast side, bean leaves form the southwest, watermelon leaves form the northwest, and muskmelon leaves from the northeast” (Moerman 610). Here the Navajo combine the corn with beans and squash, also called the Three Sisters. While the corn is a mother, she also has two sisters to aide in the nourishment she provides. Beans and squash have long been associated with the Corn Mother; together they are termed the “Three Sisters”. “The corn is a pole for beans, and provides shade for squash. Broad squash leaves carpet the rows between corn, smothering harmful weeds” (McMaster & Trafzer 79). In Carlson’s studies of the Hidatsa women he found evidence of the Three Sisters abundant. They used many varieties in various configurations for optimal harvest. Not only does this demonstrate agricultural ingenuity, it shows the Native American’s deep respect for the earth itself. Nothing received from the earth is taken for granted and is bestowed high honor. Everything is used resourcefully and respectfully.

More than just a meal While Zea mays is literally a life sustaining object, the same items used as food can be used for ceremonious occasions as well. Hopi, Iroquois, Isltea, Navajo, Pueblo, Seminole, and Zuni, to name a few, have specialized uses for the great plant. Birth, coming of age, weddings, mourning and death ceremonies all incorporate corn in various forms. The pollen, meal, corn silks, kernels, cobs, and the actual ear of corn itself can all be found among these traditions. Hopi use the corn in various forms throughout all stages of life, “The connection between corn and life is made at the time of birth when a perfectly formed ear of native white corn is placed next to the newborn child and another next to the mother for a period of 20 days. The ear of corn represents their spiritual mother, Mother Earth, from whence the corn was formed and to which the bodies of the baby and mother will return upon death. On the twentieth day, the perfect ear of corn is used to bless the baby at a naming ritual, completing the child’s passage from the spirit world to earthly existence. This ritual is repeated at the kachina initiation rite at about 11 years of age and at the tribal initiation rites into the priesthood societies upon reaching adulthood. At the final rite of passage back into the spirit world, cornmeal is applied to the face of the deceased.” (Gattuso 145)

Not unlike the Hopi, most tribes use corn to represent life in various stages. The Keres call it petana and use the meal to bless sacred objects, in kachina ceremonies and protection during stick races. Navajo use the corn husks to roll cigarettes for ceremonial smokes. The Ramah, along with other southwest tribes, use the pollen and silks to bless and adorn people and objects alike. In most tribes nationwide, it is used to symbolize ones return to the earth. At death the ear is replaced with meal and sprinkled on the body, just as bodies turn to dust and scatter throughout mother earth. Corn is a circle of life.

A celebration to last throughout the year While corn was used in many different ceremonies, the corn itself had a celebration. It carries many different names throughout different nations. Iroquois celebrate a corn sprouting ceremony while the Navajo rejoice in the pollen. Two of the most well-known and widely celebrated are the Busk and the Tablita. Both celebrate the bounty and praised gratitude for the gifts befallen them from mother earth and their Corn Mother. The Catawba, Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Timucua, and Seminole all have some form of Busk. The word “busk” comes from paskita meaning to fast. Also known as the Green Corn Ceremony, it is “linked to the ripening of the second or late crop of the corn, the ceremony was the most important of the twelve monthly feasts dedicated to the first fruits of horticulture and hunting. The busk took place at the time of ‘the big ripening moon’ [July/August] and its celebration marked the turning of the seasons from summer to winter” (Bolle 134). The ceremony itself consists of scouring, fasting, purging, dancing, feasting and cleansing. It is a time of purity and renewal. Women of the village gather old, worn or broken pottery and utensils to repair, clean or relinquish to the fire. The entire village fasts for a period ranging from one to four days, with some exceptions for children and elderly. However, no new corn was to be eaten by anyone. “A Creek chieftain…concentrated on the fasting-which gave the ceremony its name ‘busk’. While none were permitted to eat corn from April until July or August, ‘baskita’ meant a three day period of fasting… accompanied by purging with the ‘black drink’ of snake root, senneca or cassina” (Fussell 288). In Hudson’s book Black Drink: A Native American Tea, he discusses the beverage. He describes the Ilex vomica as an aide in purging and as “one of the four great medicines used in its annual busk or green corn ceremonies held in summer’ (p.124). The cleansing practice parallels the spiritual catharsis and the purification for the earth to bare her bounty. The “leaves were thus offered to the new fire of the busk in the same manner as the corn” (p.124). After all home fires were extinguished in the village, a great fire was built in the center of the town. The extinguishing old fires and lighting new ones was very symbolic and an important part of the festivities. Everyone joined in dancing around the flames to chant and massage the earth that harbored the corn. In a celebration of the coming harvest and to break the fast, a grand meal is prepared. “Coals from the ceremonial fire were used to relight the hearth fires, and upon these the village women now cooked a great feast” (Maxwell 241). The final rites of the Busk include a communal bath. Members of the tribe gather in a nearby body of water to cleanse and purify them for the coming year. Ultimately the celebration permits oneself to be rid of old or damaged goods, habits or transgressions and repair, rekindle or renew for the year to come. “The anthropologist Charles Hudson believes ‘we would have something approaching the Green Corn Ceremony if we combined Thanksgiving, New Year’s festivities, Yom Kippur, Lent, and Mardi Gras’” (Champagne 254). The communities of the desert southwest celebrate corn in the spring just before planting to bless the new crop. It is known as “a communal dance, asking for good weather, rain, and bountiful crops. Through the ceremony, the dancers and their community ask the creative forces to bless the people with corn” (McMaster & Trafzer 49). The Pueblo Indians commemorate in a ceremony known as the Tablita. This refers to the dance itself and the decorative hats worn by the women. “On their heads, each woman wears a wooden tablita, a terraced headpiece painted an orange-yellow at the top and turquoise blue at the bottom. On the uppermost portions of the headdress are eagle down feathers. The common name for the dance comes from these beautiful art forms, alive with movement” (McMaster & Trafzer p.50).

White, yellow, orange and turquoise are important colors and are the prominent adornment of men, women and children. Branches of spruce are carried and bedeck the outfits and headdress of men and women dancers alike. Young people are partnered male/female to signify the young corn and the coming together of the pollen and the bud to produce fruit. Kavasch sums up the celebration quite nicely in her book, Enduring Harvest, describing “Throbbing drumbeats, chanting, moccasined feet massaging the earth, and leg bells and rattles weave hypnotic rhythms as the multilayered musical fabric simulates the sounds of steady falling on sturdy corn plants and soft earth” (p220).

God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers Why should the Native Americans be blessed with such a bountiful crop? The sacrifice of the Corn Mother has provided for all the earth to reap the benefits. All cultures have some form of the Corn Mother: the Cherokee is Selu, Mayans have Koni’ixim, Keresan call her Iariko and the Zuni have the Corn Maidens. In the oral tradition of the Jkaltek Mayans, “there is a belief that if kernels of corn were abandoned at the edge of rivers where women wash corn, those abandoned kernels would cry as forsaken babies” (McMaster & Trafzer 51) The Zuni believe their corn maidens were harangued by their people and fled, causing drought and famine. After much lament and profuse apologies they returned “giv[ing] their flesh to the people and the famine ended” (Herschfelder & Molin 54). Though the myths vary from tribe to tribe the basic precept is the same. The Corn Mother secretly provides corn for the people from her body, some male relative discovers this and is either repulsed or ashamed, and the Corn Mother is ultimately killed and returned to the earth where she will be reincarnated as the corn plant to feed generations to come. At times she is partnered with tobacco, another important crop. The Penobscot of Maine have a particular myth about this. “…A maid of great beauty appeared and one of the young men married her. But she soon became sad and retiring and spent much time in a secret place. Her husband followed her one day and discovered that she went to the forest and met a snake, her lover…She wept when discovered...she then declared that she had a mission to perform and the he must promise to follow her instruction; if so, he would obtain a blessing that would comfort his mind in sorrow and nourish his body in want, and bless the people in time to come. She told him to kill her with a stone axe, and to drag her body seven times among the stumps of a clearing in the forest until the flesh was stripped from the bones, and finally to bury the bones in the center of the clearing. He was told to return to his wigwam...she promised to visit him in a dream…In his dream she told him that she was the mother of corn and tobacco and gave him instructions how to prepare these plants to be eaten and smoked. After seven days he went to the clearing and found the corn plant rising above the ground and the leaves of the tobacco plant coming forth…thus originated the cultivation of corn and tobacco. These plants have nourished the bodies of the Indians ever since and comforted their minds in trouble.” (Turner 25-26).
While this is only one of many variations, it shows the selfless sacrifice made to provide for a nation for generations to come. While many crops were important to the Native Americans, corn prevails. It has been used for all aspects of life. It is presented at birth, passes from adolescence to adulthood, feasted upon at weddings, and carries bodies into the spirit world. There are celebrations throughout the year to rejoice in its bounty and commemorate its harvest. The value of corn is respected and honored across all native cultures and the wisdom is passed generation to generation through various myths and legends. The nurturing spirit, gratitude, and honoring nature of an entire culture can be exemplified through this humble plant. Not only is it revered and cherished it is valued and tended to with selfless abandon. Nothing is taken for granted and every small parcel is utilized with the utmost care and respect. These actions reflect the nature of Native Americans as a whole at their core. Like the life of the Corn Mother, we are all here to sacrifice so that others may benefit; everything comes full circle.

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