Tuscarora of the Cape Fear to host harvest gathering in Belville

BELVILLE, NC (WWAY) — An event at the Brunswick Riverwalk in Belville will be a homecoming of sorts next week as hundreds of people are expected to attend what’s being called a “Harvest Gathering.”

The Tuscarora of the Cape Fear, descendants of Native Americans who inhabited this region prior to the 1700’s, is organizing this one-day celebration.

Many of the descendants of these indigenous tribes now reside across Southeastern North Carolina including Brunswick, Bladen and Columbus counties.

“You’ll find that a lot of the tribes here have a shared ancestry so you’ll find us scattered all over the place, up and down the coastal highway and as far inland as the Piedmont,” said Lovell Pierce Moore, chief of the Tuscarora of the Cape Fear. “Our family is concentrated near this area.”

One of the goals of this inaugural event is to connect youth with their ancestral heritage.

“Learning about their history is always a good thing,” Moore said. “I think it is very important — it would probably do a lot with steering kids away from the wrong things and getting involved in a lot of the things parents don’t want them [to be] involved in.”

The Harvest Gathering will be held at the Brunswick Riverwalk at Belville on Saturday, Oct. 12, noon – 5 pm.

Activities will include drumming, informational booths for veterans, fish basket-making demonstrations and storytelling. There will also be representatives from an organization called Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Men (MMIWM).

Food vendors will be present with a few serving traditional foods that would have been prepared by Native Americans several generations ago.