Published: May 04, 2008 12:38 am            

Take a step back in time at festival

Visitors to the African-American history tent at the 21st Gen. Sam Houston Folk Festival can take a step back in time when, as 82-year-old Hattie Irving said, “Things were better.”

The tent represents the African culture on one side with fabrics, books, musical instruments and recipe handouts of authentic African dishes.

The majority of the tent has memorabilia from African-American lives in the 1800s such as quilts, tubs used for washing clothes and many other antiques from an era long gone.

“My sister and I put together some of the quilts,” said Irving.

She also said some of the quilts are over 100 years old.

Irving says she has been a part of the folk festival for 22 years and can remember the first year she participated it was on Pritchett Field.

She grew up in the Riverside area on a farm; her family raised cotton, corn and garden vegetables.

She said when the children visit the tent during the festival and learn how she used to do the washing when she was growing up, they can’t believe it.

“It’s a lot different,” said Irving when comparing kids today with the time she grew up.

A photo entitled “Harvest Time” is sitting in the middle of a table full of old newspaper articles and pictures. The caption beside the photo simply states farming was a way of life and also an income.

“Back then, kids had something to do,” said Irving.

She was referring to the fact that if one lived on a farm, there was never a time when hands weren’t busy. Washing clothes took a whole day, milking the cows, churning butter, taking care of the chickens, and the tending of the crops took the entire family being involved.

As a part of the hands-on experience, the African culture side featured musical instruments to try out, jewelry made from cowrie shells and something to taste.

“The children were interested to know that from a squash, instruments could be made. They were just fascinated and played every instrument,” said volunteer Warren Moore.

He also said the cloth hanging in the tent was from various countries in Africa such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Cameroon.

He said some of the countries were formerly French colonies and the food reflects that.

“We change things up every day in the tent,” said festival dance coordinator Ahia Shabaaz.

On Friday, Liberian rice bread and oranges were served to school students visiting. Saturday featured joloff, a rice dish from Nigeria, freshly churned butter, homemade chicken and dumplings, prepared by Irving, cornbread, green beans and strawberry bread.

Shabaaz said visitors to the tent always receive something free and get to learn about African American history.

Today, back by popular demand, will be ground nut soup, another African dish, served over couscous.

“I wasn’t going to cook it, but so many people asked about it,” she said, laughing. Visitors also had a chance to make peanut butter by grinding up the peanuts in a mochahete. She said visitors to the tent learn something about the clothes, culture and food.

“This is my first time here,” said Carol Settlemyer from Lovelady.

She said her niece was part of the school groups that visited on Friday.

“We had a program at the school that night and they were still excited and talking about everything they did,” she said. “They loved it.” She also tried the joloff rice and said it was excellent.

Today is the last day of the festival on the Sam Houston Memorial Museum grounds.

The gates will be open from noon to 5 p.m. Admission for adults is $7, ages 5-2 $3 and groups of 15 or more is also $3.

        

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