Upstate Weekend: Hagood Mill hosts Cherokee harvest celebration

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Pickens County’s Hagood Mill Historic Site will host its annual Cherokee harvest festival, called Selugadu — or “cornbread” in the Cherokee language — Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

The event features the usual round of mill events including living history demonstrations, operation of the mill and vendors, but native performers and artisans will be the star feature of the day. Musicians will perform Cherokee hymns in the Tsalagi Gawonihisdi language along with traditional drumming, dancing and flute playing from Amy Sindersine of the Reedy River Inter-tribal Association, The Kau-Ta-Noh-Jrs Society Singers of the Tuscarora Nation  with On’yas Locklear, Raniya Locklear and Nawayla Locklear and Keepers of the Word according to a news release from Ten at the Top.  Nancy Basket from Walhalla will share tribal stories and demonstrate basket making.

Guests also can learn the ropes of tribal and prehistoric cooking using ancient soap stone bowls and fry-bread recipes and walk the mill’s new interpretive trail, “Our Native Roots,” that follows an indigenous trading path complete with a dugout canoe created during the festival, according to the release.

Admission is $10 per person over 13 and $5 per child with limited reservation due to COVID-19. Primitive Camping will be available Friday and Saturday at $10 per adult and $30 for an RV space, according to the release.

Through a Traditional Arts Touring Grant, the mill also will host a free artifact show-and-tell and demonstration workshop for 150 masked guests on Friday at 5:30 p.m.