Post by blackcrowheart on Sept 7, 2006 10:50:58 GMT -5
Green Corn Festival at Philipsburg Manor takes visitors back in time
By LEAH RAE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: September 3, 2006)
SLEEPY HOLLOW — Before the advent of modern rituals, such as traffic jams and back-to-school shopping, there were different ways to celebrate this particular time of year.
Philipsburg Manor is ushering tourists back to those traditions with its annual Green Corn Festival, which began yesterday and runs through tomorrow. The festival hearkens back to the American Indian celebration timed with the very beginning of the corn harvest.
Rain kept attendance down yesterday, but visitors wandered the grounds to see demonstrations of American Indian cooking, bow and arrow making, dancing and storytelling. Indoors, there were craft projects being taught by the Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Arts Council.
"We thought we would be out there in the sunshine," Ken Murphy of New City said from indoors at the manor, visiting with his daughters, Eve and Sarah. "We got blown back in by the rain."
Five-year-old Eve Murphy showed off the beads around her neck. "It's a bear claw necklace," she said.
Parts of animals were worn by American Indians in order to borrow the qualities attributed to them, said Mary Lou Gladstone, president of the arts group.
"If you use bear claws, it would give you the strength of a bear," she said.
Other art projects made use of dried objects representing the "three sisters" of American Indian agriculture: corn, beans and squash.
Visitors also toured the regular attractions at the manor, where Frederick Philipse first bought land in 1680 and began building a mill in 1682. He amassed 50,000 acres along the Hudson River within 10 years. The cash crop back then was wheat, and the mill produced 30,000 pounds of flour a week, said Bill Murray, who was working at the mill giving presentations dressed in colonial garb.
Tenant farmers were required to produce wheat, he said, and the milled flour was traded in the West Indies for sugar, molasses, rum, spices and other goods.
Corn remained an important staple for the native and enslaved populations of the area, said Thom Thacker, site director of the manor. "This festival honors the original inhabitants of the land," he said.
Outside, Susan McLellan Plaisted demonstrated how the small ears of "green" corn were harvested and the silks used for medicine and tea. Over a fire, she was cooking a pot of corn, beans, squash and venison. "That is really the traditional meal," she said.
Information on the festival is available at www.hudsonvalley.org.
By LEAH RAE
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: September 3, 2006)
SLEEPY HOLLOW — Before the advent of modern rituals, such as traffic jams and back-to-school shopping, there were different ways to celebrate this particular time of year.
Philipsburg Manor is ushering tourists back to those traditions with its annual Green Corn Festival, which began yesterday and runs through tomorrow. The festival hearkens back to the American Indian celebration timed with the very beginning of the corn harvest.
Rain kept attendance down yesterday, but visitors wandered the grounds to see demonstrations of American Indian cooking, bow and arrow making, dancing and storytelling. Indoors, there were craft projects being taught by the Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Arts Council.
"We thought we would be out there in the sunshine," Ken Murphy of New City said from indoors at the manor, visiting with his daughters, Eve and Sarah. "We got blown back in by the rain."
Five-year-old Eve Murphy showed off the beads around her neck. "It's a bear claw necklace," she said.
Parts of animals were worn by American Indians in order to borrow the qualities attributed to them, said Mary Lou Gladstone, president of the arts group.
"If you use bear claws, it would give you the strength of a bear," she said.
Other art projects made use of dried objects representing the "three sisters" of American Indian agriculture: corn, beans and squash.
Visitors also toured the regular attractions at the manor, where Frederick Philipse first bought land in 1680 and began building a mill in 1682. He amassed 50,000 acres along the Hudson River within 10 years. The cash crop back then was wheat, and the mill produced 30,000 pounds of flour a week, said Bill Murray, who was working at the mill giving presentations dressed in colonial garb.
Tenant farmers were required to produce wheat, he said, and the milled flour was traded in the West Indies for sugar, molasses, rum, spices and other goods.
Corn remained an important staple for the native and enslaved populations of the area, said Thom Thacker, site director of the manor. "This festival honors the original inhabitants of the land," he said.
Outside, Susan McLellan Plaisted demonstrated how the small ears of "green" corn were harvested and the silks used for medicine and tea. Over a fire, she was cooking a pot of corn, beans, squash and venison. "That is really the traditional meal," she said.
Information on the festival is available at www.hudsonvalley.org.