A two-day festival focusing on the cultural arts of the Southeastern Indian tribes will take place from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 19-20, at Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds.

The third annual Southeastern Tribes Cultural Arts celebration will bring together master dancers, craftsman, artists and athletes from the five main southeastern tribes — Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Seminole and Choctaw.

The educational and entertaining event teaches and perpetuates the history and culture of these tribes through live demonstrations of traditional tribal dances, storytelling performances, craft demonstrations, primitive skills encampment and juried competitions.

The demonstrations will include primitive survival skills used by the tribes in the 1700s and 1800s such as building bark huts, cooking, fire making, flint knapping and carving arrowheads. The living history exhibits will be set up by encampment demonstrators Jimmy Sanders and Diamond Brown.

Dancers from each tribe will explain the history and significance of each dance prior to the performances of dances such as Stealing Partners and the Bear and Quail dances. A strong traditional dance of southeastern tribes, the Stomp dance will be performed by the Standing Pine Social Dancers and their entire community.

The Warriors of AniKituhwa will perform ancient dances that have been resurrected by using wax cylinder recordings, which include the Cherokee War, Buffalo and Ant dances.

More than 50 artists and craftsmen will display their indigenous talents. Master craftsmen from each tribe will share live demonstrations of river cane basket weaving, finger weaving with beads, mask making, stone and woodcarving as well as stamped pottery.

Artists will display their works and participate in a juried art competition.

Archery, blowgun and running contests will test the expertise of the best athletes and competitors from each tribe as they compete for thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

Other special events include Cherokee Stickball demonstrations and the debut of the children’s book Origins of the Milky Way.

Adult admission is $7, children ages 6 to 12 are $5 and children under 6 are free. For more information call 828.497.3481 or visit www.cherokee-nc.com.