Native American Foods: Spiritual and Social Connections: Festivals

Elaborate food preparations with spiritual references were common. The calendar year was punctuated by annual festivals in which plants and animals were asked to provide generously, or thanked for good harvests. For example, the Shinnecock Strawberry Festival was a “first-food” homecoming in which the fruit and gratitude for it were paramount. For agriculturists the most important festival of the year was the Green Corn Festival, a new year celebration of the first edible corn (the often-sweet “milk” stage) and the promise of enough food for another year; festivities involved some ten days of feasting and ritual. Similar ceremonies were performed by the eastern foragers of such wild foods as ramps (genus Allium) and strawberries. At the time of the first harvesting of Northwest salmon, men fasted and women and children ate out of sight of the river.