Green Corn Ceremony

Also referred to as the Great Peace Ceremony,[1] it is a celebration of thanksgiving to Hesaketvmese (The Breath Maker) for the first fruits of the harvest, and a New Year festival as well.

[3] Following this, there is a feast of the remains of last year's crop, after which all the men of the community begin fasting (historically, the women were limited in their participation of this part of the ceremony[1]).

The Mico "Mekko" (Chief of Ceremonial Grounds or Tribal Town ) takes out a little of each of the new crops (not just corn, but beans, squash, wild plants, and others) rubbed with bear oil, and it is offered together with some meat as "first-fruits" and an atonement for all sins.

In traditional times, the women would sweep out their cook-fires and the rest of their homes and collect the filth from this, as well as any old clothing and furniture to be burnt and replaced with new items for the new year.

Many Creeks also practice the sapi or ceremonial scratches, a type of bloodletting in the mid morning, and in many tribes the men and women might rub corn milk, ash, white clay, or analogous mixtures over themselves and bathe as a form of purification.

This White Drink, known to strangers as Carolina Tea, is a caffeine-laden mixture of seven to fourteen different herbs, the main ingredient being assi-luputski, Creek for "small leaves" of Yaupon Holly.

The fourth day has friendship dances at dawn, games, and people later pack up and return home with their feelings of purification and forgiveness.

Puskita, commonly referred to as the "Green Corn Ceremony" or "Busk," is the central and most festive holiday of the traditional Muscogee people.

Historically in the Seminole tribe, 12-year-old boys are declared men at the Green Corn Ceremony, and given new names by the chief as a mark of their maturity.