Celebrating tradition
♦ Native music and dance competition highlight the annual Cherokee Homecoming and Ripe Corn Festival.
Dancing continues to be an important aspect of life in Native American culture. Several forms of native dances are on display this weekend during the 29th annual Running Water Pow Wow, Cherokee Homecoming and Ripe Corn Festival in the northern section of Ridge Ferry Park.
Dances can be purely celebratory for anything from a successful harvest, to a good hunt or part of a ritualistic religious ceremony.
Robin Jumper, the Head Man dancer from the Snowbird community outside Robbinsville, North Carolina, and a full-blooded Cherokee, said many of the dances are actually healing dances.
“It carries on our culture. It carries on our traditions and lets people know that we are still here,” Jumper said. “We get out here and let people know about our history.”
Cody Boettner, a Hoop dance champion from Daytona Beach, is a member of the Creek Nation.
“Our tribes have been through so much and we have been able to hold on to just little bits of our culture and one of those is dancing,” Boettner said. “We like to come together to celebrate, to dance like this is a celebration of holding on to our past and not losing it.”
While he finished seventh in the last national Hoop dance competition, he is competing in the Fancy dance category this weekend, which is a much faster dance.
Bill Neal, of Cherokee descent, from Cumming, is among the musicians performing on the Native flute this weekend. He used to sing with a Northern traditional drum group when he became interested in the flute.
“These flutes are the only flutes in the world that make their sound by coming out of the flute body and going back in again,” Neal said. “There is an expressiveness and tonality that strikes people in a certain way. Since the late ’80s and early ’90s, it’s been going through a renaissance because it is something that is really needed in the world right now.”
Jumper said the event in Rome is important because it is in the heart of Cherokee tribal lands.
The grand entry dance is slated for 1 p.m. this afternoon with activity continuing through the afternoon
There will also be Native American flutists, storytellers, vendors of Native art, Native food and a Birds of Prey Show.
Gates open at 10 a.m. and the festival will be open until 6 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for youth ages 6-18 as well as college students with student ID. Seniors over the age of 65 and children 5 years of age and younger are admitted free.