‘VIRGINIA INDIAN HERITAGE DAY’ AT JAMESTOWN SETTLEMENT SATURDAY, JULY 26 TO FEATURE INTERTRIBAL DANCE, PRESENTATIONS, SPECIAL EXHIBITION, HANDS-ON CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES

July 7, 2008  

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Virginia Indian cultures and their important legacy in America will be honored during “Virginia Indian Heritage Day” at Jamestown Settlement on Saturday, July 26, with intertribal dance, cultural presentations, themed museum tours and hands-on children’s activities. Jamestown Settlement is a living-history museum of 17th-century Virginia.
In partnership with the Virginia Indian community, the Virginia Intertribal Drum and Dancers will present traditional and contemporary tribal dances in full regalia at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.

 Virginia Indian leaders also will deliver two presentations: “Beyond Jamestown: Virginia Indians Yesterday and Today” at 11:15 a.m. by Karenne Wood, a member of the Monacan tribe and director of the Virginia Indian Heritage Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities; and “Legacies of Jamestown” at 3 p.m. by Chickahominy Chief Stephen Adkins and Upper Mattaponi Chief Kenneth Adams.

Children can participate in craft projects at 9:30 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. that reflect cultural practices of Virginia Indian peoples, including turkey-feather fans, clay pinch-pots and beadwork.

Themed museum tours of Jamestown Settlement’s exhibition galleries and interpretive programs will focus on Powhatan Indian culture before English contact and through the 17th century. Gallery tours will begin at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

The British Museum’s collection of 16th-century watercolor drawings by John White, the earliest visual record by an Englishman of the flora, fauna and people of the New World, will be on display in Jamestown Settlement’s special exhibition gallery. The exhibition of White watercolors, “A New World: England’s First View of America,” is at Jamestown Settlement from July 15 to October 15.

Interpretive programs in the re-created Powhatan Indian village show the Powhatan way of life in the early 1600s, including methods of cooking, processing animal hides, making tools and pottery, and weaving natural fibers into cordage. In the riverfront discovery area, visitors can learn about Powhatan methods of fire starting, canoe making, fishing and trade. Ninety-minute orientation tours of the outdoor living-history areas, including re-creations of the three ships that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607 and colonial fort, begin daily at 10 and 11 a.m., 12 noon, 1, 2, 3 and 3:30 p.m.

Jamestown Settlement is located at the intersection of State Route 31 and the Colonial Parkway.  Operating hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (until 6 p.m. June 15 through August 15). Admission is $13.50 for adults, and $6.25 for ages 6 through 12.  Parking is free.

Jamestown Settlement is administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia that is accredited by the American Association of Museums. For more information about Jamestown Settlement, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838, or visit www.historyisfun.org.