This 1585 painting, entitled A Festive Dance, by British artist John White depicts the Green Corn Ceremony among a group of Native Americans in the tidewater area of North Carolina. The ceremony was a common harvest celebration among many indigenous peoples in the southeastern United States, including what is now Alabama. Each town had a ceremonial center where the sacred fire would have been kindled and such ceremonies and celebrations held. John White was also a colonial governor and cartographer and was the grandfather of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in North America.
Green Corn Ceremony
Courtesy of the British Museum
