Native American Foods: Spiritual and Social Connections: Ceremonies

Key foods were incorporated into ritual dishes for important ceremonials. For example, pit-baked Navajo cake was made for weddings, squaw dances, and womanhood ceremonies. The mixture of roasted cornmeal, raisins, and, after contact, European sprouted wheat and brown sugar was precooked, placed on circles of corn husks, sprinkled with cornmeal of four different colors, and pit baked. Colored corn had special meanings. Among the Navajo, white symbolized the east and the rising sun; among the Cherokee it meant happiness and peace. When it was served, the center of the cake, or the “heart,” was buried in the ground to feed Mother Earth. In similar fashion, Hopi women making blue corn piki threw the first piece of flatbread into the fire to “feed it,” asking the baking stone “not to be lazy and to work well.” Mooseberry (genus Viburnum) was eaten only at feasts by the Kwakiutl, who also boiled huckleberries mixed with red salmon spawn and oil for their winter ceremony feast.