The John Hair Cultural Center and Keetoowah Museum will feature River Cane Technology classes as part of their “Getting Back to Basics” series in a three, four-hour sessions on February 21, March 21 and April 18.

The series will be presented in conjunction with UKB’s Historic Preservation Department’s Keetoowah Rivercane Conservation program and will feature presentations by UKB Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Roger Cain regarding river cane technology and indigenous knowledge (IK).

“One of the sessions for the classes will include a field trip to a canebrake to learn how to identify cane culms for use in baskets, blowguns and other cultural materials while also learning conservation methods for canebrakes.

“Participants will learn river cane technology associated with splitting and peeling cane as well as dying the splints for basketry. An important aspect to this series of Getting Back to Basics is to stress the importance of sustainable harvesting and to be a caretaker to the environment,” Cain said.

River cane (Arundinaria gigantea) once dominated the southeastern landscape with reports and mappings indicating these ancient ecosystems stretched miles along water ways providing clean water, shelter and food for the Keetoowah people as well as other southeastern tribes.

Unfortunately, these ecosystems were found to be a superb food source for livestock and rich soil for agricultural expansion throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, setting up the destruction and demise of the expansive bamboo forests that once dominated the southeastern woodland landscape. Today, river cane ecosystems cover less than 2% of the landscape area it once covered before contact.

For more information or to register, contact Girty Foster at 918-8712794.