VIDEO: Pioneer Days

NATCHEZ TRACE, Miss. (WCBI)- The Natchez Trace Visitors Center has become the perfect venue for Tombigbee Pioneers who conduct monthly living history programs often decked out in early 1800’s style clothing.

They perform some tasks that used to be part of everyday life but are now almost a lost art. Everything from basket weaving to quilt making, to spinning, and playing the Dulcimer to name a few.
The group was founded 21 years ago by Pat Arinder.

“I went to a living history day in Tennessee and I saw what they were doing and I got that idea that we could do it here and I came and talked to the personnel at the Natchez Trace Parkway and they liked the idea and we started originally just two times a year a spring and fall event but it became popular enough that we started doing it every month,” says Arinder.

One of the most popular displays this month was the Long Hunter collection brought by Gene Ingram, which was pretty typical of time period from the mid 1700’s to the early 1800’s.

“All history is important. We need to learn everything from the beginning of our country. Some of its good. Some of its bad. They just need to come out and see if this interests them. If it does we can get them started. I let the kids make Buffalo tube necklaces that they can take home with them. It’s a freebee,” says Gene Ingram.

Jana Gann is new to the Tombigbee Pioneers, and she brings an interesting perspective to the group.

“I’m actually Cherokee, Choctaw. I have been doing native American beed work. I have been doing schools and things like that giving demonstrations and not just beed but stick ball and native American history. Brought my daughter up her for some of the basket weaving and was asked to join. It seemed like a good idea. It was something that they didn’t have and it brought a little bit more flavor I guess you could say a little more history to the Pioneer Days,” says Gann.

In the days before Television and the Cell Phone, this was what the pioneers did for entertainment. Irene Ausborn says you don’t need to read music to play the Dulcimer, just follow the numbers.

“The frets are where the numbers come from. You mentioned the number on the music. If you have a fret number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7, and so on, your music corresponds with the number of the fret,” says Ausborn.

Ausborn says she can teach anyone how to play a simple song in just 5-minutes.