Spring Notes from Pine Arbor Tribal Town News
30 March, 1997
* At our Berry and Arbor Dance, when new corn
shoots are appearing, the importance of corn is acknowledged. Secure in
the fact fields are planted and growing, our fast from corn begins. From
Berry Dance to the igniting of Green Corn's New Fire, our renewal continuum,
we do not partake of Corn--nor new honey either. In the old days before
corn products became so pervasive, this was an easier symbolic gesture
to keep. It was security, too. Preservation of seed corn stock was assured.
The Corn Fast prevented the seed stock from being consumed before new seed
was ready. Should planted crops fail [we have records of that happening]
and all the corn seed be eaten--well, you know--major disaster. The
Corn fast also prevented major illness and sometimes, death. Dampened corn
in Deep South springtime could become host to any number of biological
problems such as the active ergot of psychedelic fame. Whole villages could,
and did, die. For each planted, gathered or hunted thing, a special ceremony
of acknowledgment is held which includes fasting for a specified time.
You've probably heard mama say, "It's not right to eat certain things until
they've been fasted for." Some suggest that by fasting we imbue life into
objects of the fast. Bees and certain moths pollinate corn, beans, pumpkins,
squash and tobacco--therefore, those species were never purposefully killed
or dislodged. Instead, they were honored with fasting, dances and prayers
of thanksgiving. In fact, it is said that no knowledge gained about “Medicine,”
healing formulae, songs, ceremonial rules and procedures, or any other
important matter, is valid until it has been fasted for.
* Sometimes, ancient traditions can prepare
us for the complexities of modern life, even in a mixed blood community
such as ours. Many communities, especially in Oklahoma, merely fast from
this year's new corn crop and eat older corn, last year's corn or corn
grown by non-Indians. Me thinks the spirit of it all has been aborted in
these instances. There's no reason for a people to maintain any tradition
regarding corn if they have forgotten or missed the point entirely.
My own mother and grandmother impressed upon me to keep no fast unless
I fully understood the associated value or could derive some education
from it--that old Muskogee duality again. If something is denied the body,
the mind and spirit must be in the intake mode. If the mind and spirit
are denied something, the body must be fed. It's a matter of maintaining
whole-person balance in our understandings. Aelah--that Duality business
is surely constant now isn’t it…!
* Thus, for Pine Arbor, the CORN FAST is also
a great intellectual pursuit and a wonderful teaching tool about the inter-
and intra-dependency of all things; it is the balanced importance of small
things, even the bee and moth. Go into your kitchen larder and look at
all the foods therein. Read a few labels. SEE! Corn is everywhere--even
in your toothpaste and your deodorant powders. It is in many of your medicines,
vitamins, paints, dyes and plastics--Aelah! It's everywhere. Talk about
the Staff-of-Life; corn is it! As Corn Fast fast approaches, take time
to reflect, consider and make preparations. If you think little ol' humans
are the most important of things at the expense of all others, examine
corn in your life. Examine life without corn and its many by-products!
* Pine Arbor takes seriously this obligation
our fore-elders assumed for us at the dawn of ceremonial history. Talk
about complexities--what's a body to do? Corn IS everywhere. Human wisdom
sometimes imitates Creator. That's a good thing these days. Our elders,
some fifty years ago (circa 1946), decided that we must fast only from
all obvious forms of corn such as fresh corn, canned corn, grits, corn
flakes, corn chips, corn tortillas, popcorn and corn whiskey no less! Bees
contribute heavily to pollination; therefore, our fasting extends to new
honey as well. It is a time to take your children into the kitchen and
study its contents--an amazing education awaits you. We not only
keep a major fast for corn but a minor fast for each of the other growing
things we harvest. Upon readiness, each of our grown foods is given to
Creator first in a specially prepared Fire of Sacrifice. Fast the
body to feed the spirit and soul, said Aunt Alice. Fast the body
to teach the heart, said Oreal McKenzie. Fast in thanksgiving and fast
to focus your relationship to all living things. We, of planet earth, are
Ena-Hvmke, one body, regardless of our form and species. What does
it profit us to enrich the body and impoverish the mind, soul or spirit;
we are whole people and must treat things in the whole and not in the part.
* Some, but not many, Indian churches have
returned to traditions of the Corn Fast since it often parallels the Lenten
season. What a wonderful way to teach the young Creator's lessons
about inter-connectivity, interdependence, self-discipline and focus. Perhaps
American Christianity as a whole could benefit from this practice. Fasting
is an area where the dominant society could really learn something from
Native communities. At this point, many traditional Creeks would quickly
ask, "Hey, isn't Power geographically specific?" Of course it is! Different
cultures in different regions have their own items of severe importance
that might well make a sufficient object of a national fast. Ever wonder
how a tea fast would work for the Church of England? Chuckle! Well, these
are just some thoughts to set you upon the right path of contemplation
as the fasting time fast approaches. It is a time that can unite parent
and child, as each becomes the other's corn guardian. It becomes
a time of talking and sharing as new solutions are sought to the standard
questions of "what do we eat now?" Alice Jenkins's answer was always, "Whatever
don't eat you first!" Like many other traditional practices, Corn Fast
helps, in part, to define us as a People of the Fire. The Fast reminds
us of interdependency with all Creator's creation. It is also parent to
a whole body of modern stories about that rascally Ol’ Rabbit and Pine
Arbor’s corn foible. Do you remember when Grandmother went to the movies
after the Berry & Arbor Dance and absent-mindedly bought a big tub
of hot buttered popcorn? Did we ever have fun with that one-but that’s
another story for another time…
*
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