Indian Festival and Pow-Wow
A special treat this weekend. Stone Mountain Park was hosting the 10th annual Indian Festival and Pow-Wow. An interesting assortment of Indian cultures and traditions. Right inside the gate we walked into a show getting ready to start called “East vs. West”. Two Indians, one from the eastern tribes and one from the western Sioux tribes, compared and contrasted the lifestyles and traditions of their ancestors. Seems the eastern Indians were more civilized, happy to barter and trade to make life easier, while the western ones, the Sioux in particular, raided and pillaged to get what they wanted, or to advance their lifestyle. I am sure this is a gross over exaggeration about the differences but it was neat to hear what they had to say and see the difference in the everyday tools used by each.
One of the exhibits was a bird trainer. He had a falcon and an owl that he showed. It flew up into the tree, look around a bit, and with a signal from the trainer swooped back in. One thing we found interesting was to learn that an owls eyes don’t actually rotate in their sockets but rely on the head of the owl to swivel for it to look around. Also found out that they have fourteen vertebrae in their neck allowing them to look around with much more grace and at steeper angles than a human could ever hope to do. Both of the birds were beautiful. I think we came in near the end of the show and were only able to see a few flights before it ended.
We go to see a skin and tanning station, a pottery station – i found this process particularly interesting. The sculptor molds the clay into a shape, say a bowl or toy, and then placed it in the coals of a regular fire. By tending the fire with normal wood (pine, oak, etc…) and continuously scooping and piling the coals over the items they slowly lose any moisture and become hard but brittle. He had several things that he had created in the few days the show had been going on: bowls, plates, cups, other dishes, etc…
Toward the end of our day we got to see a few rounds of a dancing contest. I don’t think we really understood what we were seeing but the costumes that each of the participants wore were amazing to look at. The dance routines seemed to be about celebrating fall and the harvest.
As an aside we got a chance to go through the Antebellum Plantation and Farmyard. It was neat to see the various rooms, decor and furniture of the times. My favorite bit was that the kids had their own table on a different floor of the house from the adults…we got to have a little fun with the boys telling them “how it used to be…”.
The festival was fun. We certainly learned a lot and got picture of most of it. Something the kids can look at from time to time. I didn’t even think about it at the time but Carol mentioned it later – sadly I didn’t get any pictures of Us with the Indians. Oh well, maybe next year.
Related posts:
