Schemitzun Festival: Preserving Traditional Practices Cultural festivals and performances are an important way to preserve and continue traditional practices, and to share them with others.  Members of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation support and participate in the Foxwoods Dance Troupe and the Mystic River Singers, and take part in such ceremonies and celebratory events as Pau Was, Pequot Days, and Schemitzun. Some of these are exclusively Pequot events, while others share traditional cultural practices with other Native peoples and the general public around the world. Prehaps the most prominent of these public events is Schemitzun. Traditionally, as crops were harvested at the end of each summer, Native people came together to give thanks to the Creator for life’s bounty and to mark the occasion in song and dance. Schemitzun is the Pequot word for this event, which was held just as the first ears of corn ripened. The Mashantucket Pequots revived this green corn ceremony in October 1992 by initiating a pan-tribal dance and drum celebration. Schemitzun has quickly become the world’s largest Native American dance celebration. The festival of green corn remains one of the Mashantucket Pequot’s larger efforts to acknowledge and promote traditional forms of song, dance, and performance—for the community at Mashantucket, for Native Americans nationally, and for the general public.