

IROQUOIS USES OF MAIZE 79 



Ices go when they dance off the flies. This pudding is used only by 

 members of the Buffalo company, a " medicine " society. 1 

 1 Ball players pudding, Gadjis'kwae* odjis'kwa. 2 This is a 

 charm pudding and made like false face pudding except that it is 

 a little sweeter and contains more meat. A woman afflicted with 

 rheumatism or some like disease prepares this pudding and pre- 

 sents it to a ball player, who, eating it, is supposed to charm away 

 the disorder by his activity. He sets at defiance the spirits which 

 have crippled the patient. If her case is very severe she bathes her 

 limbs in sunflower oil and drinks it with the pudding. 



False face pudding, Gago n 'sa odjis'kwa. 3 This was a cere- 

 monial pudding eaten at the False Face dances, at special private 

 lodge feasts or in the ceremonies of healing the sick. It was com- 

 posed of boiled parched corn meal mixed with maple sugar. Sun- 

 flower or bear oil was used with it in special cases. This pudding 

 is considered a most delicious food and believed to be a very power- 

 ful factor for pleasing the masks. No one must make a disrespect- 

 ful remark while eating this pudding as the mysterious faces were 

 thought to be able to punish the offender by distorting their faces, 

 and cases are cited to prove this assertion. 



Unusual foods 



Decayed corn, Utgi'onao*. A corn food of which the Iroquois 

 of today have no memory is described by Sagard who calls it bled- 

 puant. To prepare this viand the ear of corn before it was fully 

 mature was immersed in stagnant water and allowed to " ripen " 

 for two or three months at the end of which time it was taken out 

 and roasted or boiled with meat or fish. The odor of this putrid 

 corn was so frightful that the good father either through imagina- 

 tion or from good cause relates that it clung to him for a number 

 of days from simply touching it. Nevertheless he adds that the 

 Indians sucked it as if it were sugar cane. 4 



It is safe to say that among the Iroquois no knowledge of this 

 food remains. An Iroquois whom the writer interrogated said that 



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

 New ser. v. XI, no. 2. 



2 Dehaji'gwa'es odjis'kwa is the Mohawk form. 



3 Ago n 'hwarha odjis'kwa is the Mohawk name. 



4 Sagard. Le Grand Voyage du Pays Des Hurons, p. 97; Tross ed. 1865, 

 p. 140; orig. ed. Paris 1632. 



