Cultivating Evolution

Corn (also known by Native American Tribes as maize) is a grain crop that grows on a stalk. The kernels of corn grow in rows on each ear. Most people are familiar with the fresh corn that can be found in the produce department of the local grocery store.

It is currently believed Corn evolved from a wild grass (Teosinte) some 5,000-10,000 years ago in the Southern part of the cultural region known as Arid America, in the Western Sierra Madre of the State of Chihuahua and Guadian Valley in Durango, to the Guatamalan border, including pratically the entire western part of Mesoamerica.

The ancestral kernels of Teosinte looked very different from today's corn. These kernels were small and were not fused together like the kernels on the husked ear of early maize and modern cultivated corn. Fossil pollen grains of corn have been found in drill cores of lake sediment beneath Mexico City. These sediments could be 80,000 years old or more.

Native American hunter-gatherers in south-western Mexico started to select seeds of the "best" teosintes they found in the wild and plant them deliberately. Their patient selection eventually transformed a straggly plant bearing its seeds in loose tassels on long side branches into the familiar maize plant, with seeds carried in handy compact cobs on very short side shoots. Very slowly the cultivation of maize was introduced into the southwestern and southeastern parts of North America. The practice of maize agriculture did not reach the Eastern portion of the present day United States until about a thousand years ago.

Staple Food

Once introduced maize became the main food of Native Americans and was eaten at almost every meal. There were many varieties of corn: white, blue, yellow and red. There were many recipes that called for corn. There was roast corn soup which consisted of 12 ears of white corn, one salt pork, and one pinto or kidney beans. (Recipes From The Woodland Culture Area) Corn was often ground into corn meal,by using wooden mortars and pestles. (Tuni 36) According to Dr. Stuckey, corn was dried, then soaked in water for two days. Once the kernels had puffed up and split open,they were drained and rinsed in cold water. Then the corn was stir-fried over a fire. This corn was called hominy. Corn meal could be used to make cornbread, corn pudding, corn syrup, or could be mixed with beans to make succotash. Succotash was a special dessert made by boiling corn meal and maple syrup.

Corn Ceremony and Native Origins

Tribes throughout North America held calendrical thanksgiving ceremonies focused on regional agricultural cycle of growing and harvesting sacred corn. Many Native American traditions, stories and ceremonies surround corn, one of the "three sisters" (maize, beans and squash). Even in New England there are many variations on how maize was brought or introduced to Native Americans here. Generally in southern New England, maize is described as a gift of Cautantowwit, a deity associated with the southwestern direction; that kernels of maize and beans were delivered by the crow, or in other versions the black-bird. Responsible for bringing maize, the crow would not be harmed even for damaging the cornfield. Other Algonkian legends recount maize brought by a person sent from the Great Spirit as a gift of thanks.

The Green Corn Dance (or Green Corn Ceremony or Busk), is the only ancient ceremony that survived into the 20th century. The ritual festival held when flour corn is in the roasting-ear stage. This annual renewal ceremony was widespread among Native American societies (Witthoft 1949). There are several indications that the Green Corn Ceremony probably existed in protohistoric and Mississippian chiefdoms: 1) the ceremony had a wide geographical distribution; 2) it was very elaborate and took days to perform in each society; 3) it served basic social and economic concerns, and; 4) it was observed very early in the eighteenth century. This view is supported by the similarities in descriptions of an early eighteenth-century Natchez New Year ceremony (Cushman 1962:444) to historic Green Corn Ceremonies in recorded times. Le Moyne (Lorant 1946) also described a very similar ceremony among the sixteenth-century Timucuans in Florida.

"Traditionally this was a very important festival," says Barbara Duncan, an archivist at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. "It was the beginning of the new year. It was a time when people gave thanks for the corn crop, which they identified with the continuation of life for them and all people. It was also a time for all old scores to be settled. All grudges were put aside. Everybody made amends, forgave each other and started over. It was a ceremony that was supposed to be done before anyone ate any of the ripe corn."

Giving Thanks to Corn

In 1620 Squanto and Samoset of the Algonkian-speaking Pokanokit Wampanoag (Eastern People or People of the Dawn) nation were hunting along the beach near Patuxet. They were startled to see people from Plymouth, England in their deserted village. The Pilgrims, who called themselves the "Saints", were not in good condition. These colonists were living in dirt-covered shelters, there was a shortage of food, and nearly half of them had died during the winter. They obviously needed help and the two men were a welcome sight. Squanto, who probably knew more English than any other Indian in North America at that time, decided to stay with the Pilgrims for the next few months and taught taught them how to cultivate their sacred corn and by digging holes in the ground, dropping in some corn kernels and small fish, and then covering the holes.

By the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims, thanks to the help on how to survive they had received. The event was not a Calvinist thanksgiving of the type celebrated by the Plymouth colonists, which was a religious observance at church, and would not have lasted several days, included non-Christian guests or secular recreations. It was instead a traditional European harvest celebration often centered around the end of the grain harvest. In rural England, all who helped with the harvest celebrated the Harvest Home, observed on last day of bringing in the harvest. It was also called the 'Ingathering' or 'Inning', and in Scotland 'Kern'. The harvest feast coincided with Algonkian tribe's green corn festival to give thanks for the ripening corn. It was only in the nineteenth century that this event became identified with the American Thanksgiving holiday.

It is traditionally believed that Captain Miles Standish, the leader of the Pilgrims, invited Squanto, Samoset, Massasoit (the leader of the Wampanoags), and their immediate families to join them for a celebration in their honour. The Wampanoags brought deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the colonists.

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors," wrote Edward Winslow. "They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

Corn Today

Today corn is the largest crop in the United States, both in terms of acres planted and the value of the crop produced. Corn is the most widely distributed crop in the world. Corn can grow at altitudes as high as 12,000 feet in the South American Andes Mountains and as low as sea level. It can also grow in tropical climates that receive up to 400 inches of rainfall a year or in areas that receive only 12 inches. It’s an exciting world where corn not only nourishes, but cleans the air, provides habitat for wildlife, supplies the material needs of our population and improves our overall economy and standard of living.