Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

148 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY
The details of processing green corn as told to
me by Frank and Adeline Wanatee are similar in
many ways to the observations made by Juanita
Pudwill, who actually shelled green corn with
another family at the Mesquakie Settlement. She
(pers. comm., 1979) related as follows:
During August on the Mesquakie Settlement, green corn
is gathered, husked, and parboiled in large iron kettles over
the open fire in an outside open framed hut. The kernels are
removed from the cob and laid out on large sheets of plastic
to dry in the sun. It is then stored for winter use.
At the home where I was included during the harvest in
the fall of 1976, it was the uncle's job to keep the fire and
pots going. The corn was put in to boil at a certain time in
the afternoon to make sure that things would be ready when
the children were home from school. The harvest ceremony
is for all members of the family to partake in. We all
gathered in the front room, most of us sitting on the floor
with a large old tablecloth draped over our legs. Everyone
chose a mussel shell which would fit well into the palm of
his or her hand. I, being right-handed, chose the shell to fit
in that hand. The conch edge lies between the thumb and
forefinger, with the sharp edge down. One presses the sharp
edge down in between the rows of kernels and prys them
out. The kernel must not be cut in removing it from the ear.
The next day, the corn was laid out to dry and after drying,
it would be put in containers ready for winter use.
In this case it should be noted that the clam shell
was held so that its interior surface faced towards
the person shelling the corn. Thus the thumb was
placed into the cavity or parallel to the hinge
below the dorsal margin of the valve. The four
fingers pressed in opposition on the exterior of the
shell. The kernels of corn were detached from the
cob with a motion that brought them towards the
person engaged in shelling.
Today some people at the Mesquakie Settlement
use metal spoons for shelling corn. As noted
previously (p. 142), Buffalobird-woman stated
that metal spoons generally replaced clam shells
as corn shellers among the Hidatsa in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century. The use
of metal spoons has also been mentioned above
for the Mesquakie earlier in this century and for
the nineteenth-century Fox. Mary Goose (pers.
comm., 1979), a Mesquakie and presently an
undergraduate student majoring in anthropology
at Iowa State University, indicated to me that
her family shells green corn with metal spoons.
Frank and Adeline Wanatee, however, prefer us­
ing clam shells because, for them, the shells are
easier to grasp and are less apt to cut into the
kernels than are metal spoons. The Wanatees
consider metal knives definitely undesirable for
this purpose as opposed to this usage previously
cited for the Iroquois and the Prairie Potawatomi.
Metal knives, they contend, cut off the bases of
the kernels. This results not only in wasting part
of the corn but also in allowing the milk to flow
out of the kernel. The Wanatees, and evidently
most people who process green corn in this manner,
want to preserve as much of the total nutrients
as possible when the kernels are shelled off
the cobs and dried for future consumption.
Archeological Evidence of Clam Shell
Corn Shellers
The archeological specimens of worked mussel
shells already referred to (p. 136) were collected at
prehistoric Oneota sites along the central Des
Moines River south of the city of Des Moines.
These sites have been attributed to the Moingona
Phase (Gradwohl, 1967; 1974:95-96), which is
thought to extend from approximately A.D. 1000
to 1500, although some radiocarbon assays date
before and others after that range. The Moingona
Phase is known from at least thirteen components
demonstrated by surface collections, two components
from tested sites, and four components
that were more extensively excavated: 13PK1
(Howard Goodhue site), 13WA2 (Clarkson site),
13WA105 (Cribbs' Crib site), and 13MA30
(Mohler Farm site). Since these sites are prehistoric,
any ethnographic assignment is tenuous.
Without opening Pandora's parfleche, my own
hunch is that the people represented by the Moingona
Phase were Chiwere Siouan speakers, most
probably groups known historically as the loway
or the Oto.
The archeological residue recovered from the
excavated sites of the Moingona Phase represent
extensive horticultural activities. The ecofactual
and archeological data, along with the appropriate
ethnographic parallels or analogies, indicate
that, among other things, the people inhabiting
these sites were engaged in the growing, harvesting,
storing, and processing of corn. These infer-