Earl Fish and Keith Printup unloaded heaps of corn from a farm truck and transferred them to the plastic sheet blanketing the concrete floor at the Onondaga Nation Fieldhouse on Friday afternoon. 

“You don’t have to be gentle with it,” Fish said, as he grabbed piles of corn from the farm truck.

Fish nestled the corn in his arms and against his chest and then tossed the bunch on the floor. 

Christine Falcone stood by a large bin, stripping husk off the ears of corn and preparing them for the next step in the process. 

Falcone, Fish and Printup have husked corn for years, the process becoming second nature to their hands. The team worked steady and efficiently like an assembly line.

This year, after a long break during the Covid-19 pandemic, Onondaga Nation residents were able to revive the Onondaga Nation Community Corn Husking Bee.  

In the Onondaga Nation, community is at the epicenter of its culture, and so is corn. As part of Haudenosaunee tradition, corn husking is an annual harvesting ritual done to preserve seeds in preparation for the next season. 

The corn is distributed throughout the community for food recipes, ceremonies or offerings.

“As a nation we’re not out here monetizing. This stuff is sacred to us. We try to keep it that way, so we keep it  to ourselves. We don’t want to see it abused,” Parker Booth said. 

Corn or Oñeha’ is a staple vegetable in Haudenosaunee culture. Its multi-use purpose extends beyond corn-inspired recipes like traditional white corn soup, cornbread or ojisgwa’ (mush). Many people use corn as decorations, for ceremonies or for medicine (its stock can be infused in teas, for example). 

“Growing up here on the res’, this is how we grew up. It wasn’t a matter of jumping in, you just helped out, you just did your part,” said Awhenjiosta “Whenji” Myers, who has husked corn her entire life. “That’s how we were raised over in the longhouse. When there’s things going on we all contribute in some way.”

In early September, Booth made an announcement at the Green Corn Ceremony, calling for participants to help harvest, sort, braid or husk. 

For nearly a month, a small team of community members has dedicated countless hours of its labor and time to husking corn before the season ends. 

Prior to the pandemic, the students of the Onondaga Nation School were involved with the process of corn husking, Myers said. The students helped braid corn husks.

Throughout the afternoon, everyone pitched in to handle the ears of corn. Myers and Booth sorted the ears, braided corn husks and peeled and cleaned mountains of corn. They cracked jokes to the other volunteers as music played in the playground.

Booth bundled the husks in two different styles: a traditional braiding style or by using hay baling twine, a modern method. 

“Instead of doing it the traditional way with braiding, we do it with the twine, we bundle them in groups of five, and then put an overhand knot on each bundle. It dixie chains it and makes a bundle or a braid,” Booth said.

The process of braiding or bundling the corn husks makes it easier, especially if one person is doing the work. Each of the bundles carries anywhere from 50 to 115 husks.

Along the outdoor fieldhouse, piles of white and colored corn covered picnic tables. The pavilion was divided by task: one section strictly for sorting, another for stripping husks and another for cleaning, stalk and root removals and preparing to braid.

Large bundles of 50 to 100 ears of corn were braided together and hung to dry in the fieldhouse.

Some of the discarded husks will be used to make dolls. The artform has been passed down for generations. 

“It’s a beautiful craft, not many people carry that on,” Myers said. 

Corn husking dolls designed by corn husk doll maker Sasha Moore of Onondaga Eel Clan. Photo credit: Sashsa Moore

The dolls have elaborate details with intricate beading and traditional clothing, with the exception of having faces. This style of doll making was based on a traditional folklore about a young girl who lost her face because of self-vanity. Some of the dollmakers sell the corn husks dolls and display them at presentations to showcase and educate other people about the skill. It also serves as a teaching lesson to the community. 

Volunteers at the nation worked countless hours from September to November to harvest the corn, preventing it from growing mold caused by extreme weather conditions late in the season.

Now,  the corn kernels can be used to plant new corn in the spring. Kernels take up to 120 days from the day they’re planted to reach maturity, Parker said. 

“That’s the whole thing with this is trying to be an annual thing,” Booth said. “There were always people who grew corn. You gotta keep the seed going.” 

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Yolanda Stewart was raised in the Bronx, New York City. Before choosing a career path in journalism she found a voice in writing plays, short stories, and a myriad of other creative outlets. She is a 2022...