Eight hundred years ago, Moundville, Alabama, was the home of a city of 10,000 people.  Once a year, a thousand of their descendants and random tourists descend on the mounds for a day of fun and edification.  Mark and I were thrilled to discover that the Native American Festival was being held the day before our cruise ship departed, and was nearly on our way.  The stars were aligned to bring us to another Native American mound.

While our visit to Moundville wasn't the same soul-bending experience as our trip to Serpent Mound, we still ended up rivetted.  The mounds themselves were amazing --- a dozen "small" ones and one sixty feet tall, the last of which we were allowed to climb.  But what really captured my attention was the educational booths set up for the festival.  I learned so much about Native American crafts that I'll have to turn it into a lunchtime series --- fire making, river cane baskets, pit-fired pottery!  Then there was the semi-authentic Native American food, an actual archaeological dig, and an astonishing number of vendors whose crafts should have been in a museum.  Despite hundreds of screaming kids, we stayed until the Alabama heat sent us scurrying for cover.  If you're ever close to Alabama in October, I highly recommend that you drop by the festival!

This post is part of our Moundville and Cruise to Mexico honeymoon series.  Read all of the entries: Moundville: Mark's reflections Moundville Native American Festival: Anna's reflections How to make fire with sticks at Moundville Cane baskets and pit-fired pottery at Moundville Carnival Holiday: Mark's reflections Carnival Holiday history Carnival Holiday cruise to Mexico: Anna's video Uxmal, Mexico video Mayan Ruins at Uxmal, Mexico: photos Cozumel, Mexico

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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