POW WOW PERFORMANCES
There will be daily exhibition pow wow performances including men’s traditional, fancy shawl, straight dance, grass dance, jingle, hoop, Southern cloth and stomp dance. Festival-goers will have a unique opportunity to learn about the origins of these diverse dances and marvel at the colorful regalia and intricate movements that characterize the Southeastern pow wow.
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NATIVE AMERICAN VILLAGE PARTICIPANTS |
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PINE NEEDLE BASKETS Marjorie Battise & Myrna Wilson Coushatta Elton, LA |
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Marjorie Battise and her sister Myrna Abbey Wilson are both long leaf pine needle basket-weavers who learned their craft from their mother, Nora Abbey, and grandmother, Ency Abbott, at an early age. Wilson recalls that they used to sit at the older women's sides, in order to gather leftover pieces of raffia and needles that they would later use for making their own baskets. Although neither claims to have a special weaving technique, they note that each pine needle basket-weaver has a slightly different way of stitching. This is particularly true of Batiste who is left-handed and stitches "backwards." Wilson has worked hard to preserve her Koasati (Coushatta) cultural heritage, not only with her crafts, but also with her stories. Battiste is also a recognized Coushatta food historian who continues to make traditional tribal foods such as fry bread. Both Wilson and Battiste were inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Master Folk Artists in 1982. |
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FLINT KNAPPING Ernest Naquin United Houma Nation Covington, LA |
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Flint knapping is the process of making stone tools (i.e. arrowheads, projectile points, hand axes, etc.). Flint knapping is a reduction process because flakes of stone are broken off of the original piece of stone. Flint is reduced and shaped by a process that involves, direct percussion, pressure flaking and finally the finishing of the point. Traditional tools include the hammer stone, antler billets, and copper tipped pressure flakers. First time demonstrator Ernest Naquin is a member of the United Houma Nation, and will be exhibiting these millennia's old techniques in the Native American Village. |
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CHINABERRY NECKLACES & CLAY POTTERY Hope Jones Jena Band of Choctaw Trout, LA |
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Hope Jones, a member of the Jena Band of Choctaw, is the daughter of tradition bearer Mary Jones. Her mother Mary, was one of the state’s last full-blooded Choctaws in Louisiana and one of only twelve fluent speakers of Choctaw. Hope carries on the traditional craft taught to her by her mother, of creating Choctaw chinaberry necklaces. |
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BEADWORK Alice Tyler Clifton Chocktaw Clifton, LA |
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Men and women alike often wear decorative beadwork with traditional clothing. A beadwork set for women often consists of a belt, medallion, collar necklaces, earrings, ribbon lapel pins, and a handkerchief lapel pin. Designs and colors are the artist's preference. Many women also wear round combs with their Choctaw dresses. Old drawings and photographs suggest that originally these combs were made from silver or other metal. Photographs from the turn of the 20th century show Choctaw men wearing shirts and ties along with strings of multicolored beads, but this style gave way to the collar necklaces, hatbands and beaded belts worn by contemporary Choctaw men. Both men and women wear sashes, known as the most traditional accessory, featuring both beadwork and applique. |
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PINE NEEDLE BASKETS Edna Tyler Clifton Chocktaw Clifton, LA |
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Edna Tyler is a member of the Clifton Choctaw community of Eastern Louisiana. She learned how to make pine straw baskets by working with family members, and perfected her craft in an apprenticeship with master artisan Kathleen Thomas. Numbers of small bands of Choctaw Indians entered central Louisiana during Spanish colonial times. Separated from their larger tribe in Mississippi, today only vestiges of their native language, kinship, arts and crafts, and tribal organization serve to link them to their past. Ms. Tyler has since passed her basket making skills to her niece Becky Walsh who also demonstrates in the Native American Village tent. |
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PINE NEEDLE BASKETS Becky Walsh Clifton Chocktaw Clifton, LA |
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Ms. Walsh is a pine straw basket maker, and member of the Clifton Choctaw Native American Community in Clifton, Louisiana. She learned the craft from her mother when she was about eleven years old. She uses a coil technique where the pine needles are coiled around and sewn together. Her tools consist of needle, raffia, and longleaf pine straw. Each basket is unique and has little designs resembling flowers sewn onto the finished basket. She uses natural dyes and some supplementary materials, such as commercial dyed raffia, to give color to the pine needle baskets. |
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