siKCKl A MOHEGAN-PEQUOT DIARY 255 



women's society, tin ordinary modern church festival now, but one 

 with a remote ancestry. Tlie account given of this event 20 years 

 ago, which is quoted below, still applies to the procedure, except 

 that oak posts are now substituted for the chestnut, the latter trees 

 through this whole region having succumbed to the chestnut blight. 



"There is no doubt, though, that the Mohegan, like most of the 

 Atlantic coast sedentary tribes, had a ceremony to signalize the 

 season of the corn harvest. Tliis ceremony, known widely among 

 other tribes as the Green Corn Dance, has a degraded survival in a 

 modern September festival. The festival is now simply a sort of 

 fair for the benefit of the Indian church. A suitable time is ap- 

 pointed by the church women, and the men proceed to erect a large 

 wigwam as a shelter. An area adjoining the church, at least 60 feet 

 square, is covered by this arbor. Crotched chestnut posts are erected 

 in the ground about 10 feet apart, and from one to the other of these 

 crosspieces are laid. Quantities of green white-birch saplings have 

 been cut and are then strewn over the roof cjuite thickly. The sides 

 are filled and woven in with these also, in such a manner as to make 

 a fairly weather-tight enclosure. A portion of the wigwam's side is 

 visible in the background of Plates 34, h, and 36. For some days be- 

 fore the festival several men are kept busy pounding up cjuantities of 

 corn for yokeg, which the women and children have roasted. Several 

 large mortars are kept exclusively for this purpose, and are the com- 

 mon property of the tribe. These are kept m the custody of the 

 Tantaquidgeon family residing a hundred yards or so from the church 

 grounds. The days of the festival are merely the occasion for a 

 general informal gathering of the Indians from far and near, and the 

 sale, for the benefit of the church treasury, of such things as they are 

 able to make. Many articles of Indian manufacture already described 

 are displayed on the benches in this wigwam, for sale as souvenirs 

 and articles of utility; while various dishes of food, ancient and modern, 

 are made and sold on the grounds. Some other sort of amusement 

 is usually introduced from outside for the three days, and an admission 

 price is charged. They also have some one appear in fuU Indian 

 costume as an added attraction. The Mohegan make this annual 

 gathering a sort of tribal holiday. The fact that it takes place at 

 the height of the corn season, and that corn products, particularly 

 yokeg and su'ktac (parched corn powder and corn and bean soup), 

 play such an important part m it, are clear indications of the early 

 nature of this festival." ' 



Within the past ten years the "Wigwam" festival has been con- 

 siderably revived by the people, many of them appearing in native 

 homemade costumes, as some of the accompanying portraits show. 



>cf. Speck, ref. i., pp. lW-195. 



