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The one institution at present in which the religious beliefs of the Seminole find special expression is what is called the “Green Corn Dance.” It is the occasion for an annual purification and rejoicing. I could get no satisfactory description of the festival. No white man, so I was told, has seen it, and the only Indian I met who could in any manner speak English, made but an imperfect attempt to describe it. In fact, he seemed unwilling to talk about it. He told me, however, that as the season for holding the festival approaches the medicine men assemble and, through their ceremonies, decide when it shall take place, and, if I caught his meaning, determine also how long the dance shall continue. Others, on the contrary, told me that the dance is always continued for four days.

Fifteen days previous to the festival heralds are sent from the lodge of the medicine men to give notice to all the camps of the day when the dance will commence. Small sticks are thereupon hung up in each camp, representing the number of days between that date and the day of the beginning of the dance. With the passing of each day one of these sticks is thrown away. The day the last one is cast aside the families go to the appointed place. At the dancing ground they find the selected space arranged as in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 77).

The evening of the first day the ceremony of taking the “Black Drink,” Pa-sa-is-kit-a, is endured. This drink was described to me as having both a nauseating smell and taste. It is probably a mixture similar to that used by the Creek in the last century at a like ceremony. It acts as both an emetic and a cathartic, and it is believed among the Indians that unless one drinks of it he will be sick at some time in the year, and besides that he cannot safely eat of the green corn of the feast. During the drinking the dance begins and proceeds; in it the medicine men join.

At that time the Medicine Song is sung. My Indian would not repeat this song for me. He declared that any one who sings the Medicine Song, except at the Green Corn Dance or as a medicine man, will certainly meet with some harm. That night, after the “Black Drink” has had its effect, the Indians sleep. The next morning they eat of the green corn. The day following is one of fasting, but the next day is one of great feasting, “Hom-pi-ta-çlak-o,” in which “Indian eat all time,” “Hom-pis-yak-i-ta.”

Green Corn Dance.