78 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Roasted corn, Gani'ste n 'da. This was the husked ear of green 

 corn baked in hot embers. 



It is related that one of the old methods was to dig a long trench 

 and place the ears across two slender green saplings and allow the 

 heat of the hot coals to cook the corn. The ears could easily be 

 turned over and the roasting made uniform (see pi. 21). 



Sometimes a husked ear of corn 'was incased in clay and baked. 

 This was called Oga'goak'wa or gago n duk. For roasting ears 1 

 singly a sharpened stick was shoved into the stem and the ear held 

 in the embers. 



If kernels of the corn prepared in this way were sufficiently dried 

 and parched the entire ear or the shelled kernels were capable of 

 long preservation. The writer has found roasted corn on the cob, 

 several centuries old, buried in pits Which evidently once had been 

 bark lined cellarettes. Parched shelled kernels are commonly found 

 in caches in Indian village or lodge sites. 



Pop corn pudding, Watatofi'gwus odjis'kwa. Corn was 

 popped in a metal or clay kettle and then pulverized in a mortar and 

 mixed with oil or syrup. The writer has often seen the modern 

 Iroquois run their corn popped in a modern popper through a chop- 

 ping machine and eat the light white meal with sugar and milk or 

 cream. 



Ceremonial foods 



Bear's pudding, Niagwai"tato n odjis'kwa. 2 This was a cere- 

 monial food prepared from yellow meal unseasoned and mixed with 

 bits of fried meat. The meal was boiled into a pudding and the 

 meat thrown in afterward. Bear dance pudding was only used as 

 a ceremonial food in the Bear Society meetings or by members 

 performing some of the rites. 3 



Buffalo dance pudding, Degi'yago 11 odjis'kwa. 4 Squaw corn 

 is pounded to a meal, boiled as a pudding and sweetened with 

 maple or corn sugar. This pudding is harder than Bear dance 

 pudding, its proper consistency being like the mud where the buffa- 



1 Beverly says, " They delight to feed on roasting ears, that is Indian 

 corn, gathered green and milky, before it is grown to its full bigness." 

 History of Virginia. 



2 O'kwa'rhi odjis'kwa is the Mohawk form. 



9 See Parker, A. C. Seneca Medicine Societies. Am. Anthropologist. 

 New ser. v. XI, no. 2. 

 4 Dege'lhiyagon odjis'kwa is the Mohawk form. 



