Native American Experience coming to Tifton ag museum and village
GoNativeNow, a Native American-owned and operated educational group, will be featured
Jim Hendricks
TIFTON – Two November events at the Museum of Agriculture in Tifton will combine for a late afternoon and evening event that will include Native American culture and the traditions of cane-grinding and syrup-making.
The Native American Experience and Cane Grinding will be 4 p.m.-9 p.m. on Nov. 21 at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
Featured again will be GoNativeNow, a Native American-owned and operated educational group that travels the United States, conducting re-enactments, providing demonstrations, hosting camp-outs, and offering performances by The Iron Horse Singers and Dancers.
Last year the Native American Experience was conducted over a two-day period and the cane-grinding/syrup-making was on a different weekend. Museum Director Garrett Boone said the decision was made to combine them into a one-day event this year.
“This is the first time we have done it (the Native American Experience) as an evening event,” he said. “The cane-grinding has traditionally been an evening event.”
While the Native American show will be open one day to the public, school children will have a chance to attend a program the day before. Museum officials are expecting a big crowd of students.
“The way we have it set up is Friday (Nov. 20), we have a program for school children only,” Boone said, adding that about 1,200 students have been registered to attend that program.
Museum officials are expecting a similar crowd of children and adults for the Saturday evening performances and demonstrations.
“Usually 700 to 1,200 come out,” Boone said, “and that’s what we’re expecting for this event.”
GoNativeNow is led by Little Big Mountain, a fourth-generation dancer, singer and educator on Native American culture. His father, Iron Horse Big Mountain, was Comanche from Anadarko, Okla., and his mother, Wildflower Big Mountain, is Mohawk from Kahnawake, Canada. Little’s reservation is the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Canada, southwest of Montreal.
Museum officials said Little has been performing since he was a child and competing on the Pow-Wow Trail. He has been educating on Native culture across the United States for more than 40 years. Beginning with his great-grandfather, The Big Mountain family’s performances date to the mid-1800s. They perform at venues including Disney World and Universal Studios, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Rank Leisure Dinner Shows, native festivals, history fairs, Pow-Wows, and schools for children from kindergarten to college.
“It’ll be in the center of the village at the Gibbs House,” Boone said. “We’ll have vendors on hand to provide dinner for those who want to participate.”
Concessions at the Historic Village Drug Store will include homemade soup and cornbread, barbecue sandwiches, ice cream, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Food vendors will also be on hand providing hamburgers, hot dogs, funnel cakes and candy slushies.
The museum village is one of the few places visitors can take a step back in time to see sugar cane grinding powered by a mule. The cane juice that pours from the cane mill will be transferred to the syrup shed, where it will be cooked down in a cast iron kettle to make syrup. Costumed museum interpreters will be on hand to explain the process of producing the syrup.
Homemade biscuits with hot cane syrup will be available for sampling at the Gibbs House, and cane syrup will be available for sale.
“The Vulcan steam train will be running that night as well,” Boone said. The train is powered by a 1917 Vulcan steam locomotive.
Admission to the Georgia Museum of Agriculture and Historic Village on Tuesdays-Fridays is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors (age 55 and over), $4 for children 5-16 years of age, and free for children 4 and under. Saturday admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors (age 55 and over), $5 for children 5-16 years of age, and free for children 4 and under. The Museum is closed on Sundays and Mondays.
Contact museum staff at (229) 391-5205 or visit the museum’s website at www.abac.edu/museum.
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