Native American Heritage Celebration

I volunteered in the Master Naturalist booth at the Native American Heritage Celebration at Wonders of Wildlife in late September. It was a Friday-Sunday event with school groups coming on the Friday. We had two tables – one for bison (things that were made from bison parts) and trees of Missouri.

The students seemed to enjoy both topics – some spending quite a lot of time touching items and interacting with us. I usually did the tree table…linked trees to Native American heritage with the hedge apple/osage orange wood being used for bows and eastern redcedar (medicine, flavoring, ritual/ceremony). The first year maple-in-a-bottle sparked their interest too…particularly the variety of roots (some hairlike, some stubby, the thick central root).

They looked at different kinds of cones (the egg shaped/sized shortleaf cone being the only one native to Missouri) and talked about things children might do with pine cones – now and before Europeans came.

I was glad that I could put tree related Missouri Department of Conservation publications on a nearby table…they were available but not taking any space away from my tree samples.