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Green Corn Ceremony (Busk)
The most sacred ceremony of the Southeastern tribes — renewal, forgiveness, and first harvest.
📅 August 15 – 4 days
✦ Why It Matters
The Green Corn Ceremony (Busk) is the most sacred ceremony of the Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole nations. It is a complete renewal of the world — crimes are forgiven, old fires extinguished, new sacred fire kindled, and the community reborn.
✦ How It Is Observed
Four days of fasting and purification, extinguishing all fires, lighting of the new sacred fire (from which all community fires are relit), ritual bathing, feasting on new corn, forgiveness of debts and offenses, ceremonial dances.
✦ Sacred Text
“The corn is ripe. The world begins again. What has passed is forgiven. What has been broken is healed. The new fire burns for all.”
— Muscogee oral tradition ↗