Olive Hill Pioneer Days
These are Mennite friends of mine that were present demonstrating and selling their crafts at the Olive Hill Pioneer Days Pow Wow 1996. Pow Wow's are  friendly with lots of good clean fun for the whole family to enjoy.
The Mennite village here in TN is nestled in a quite peaceful valley surrounded by mountains.
You won't find any stores, filling stations, electricity or telephones in the entire  valley. Their means
of  transportation is still horse and buggy. Mennites live mainly on the barter system and need very little money. A visit to the nearest town often takes sevral days of travel. They grow their own food with the help of a mule and plow and make their own clothing, funiture. These people are very skilled craftsmen and take pride in their work.
My nephew, son and I had the privledge of visiting with this family during their house raising. It was amazing the skill and ingenuity that went into the project. In one day a two story house including the bathroom complete with shower and indoor plumbing  was finished,  Elia took me on a grand tour of his 350 acre farm and showed me how he and his family lived a quite, simple, independant life without the need for all the modern conviences we have grown so accustomed to in our every day life. The Mennite children were all very happy, healthy and well adjusted without the need for TV, radio and all the other forms of entertainment that most kids today would feel deprived without. Children enjoy learning to master the knowledge and skills they will need as adults and often begin to develope their specific hobbies and interests at an early age into a skill that can later be bartered. Visiting  Elia and his  family was an interesting and educational experience for all of us, it was
very similar to traveling  back in time a 100 years or more
Native Americans and Mennites from early pioneer days have always lived in harmony with each other and with their environment.

Kenny (Yellow Eyes) Cherokee
Here you will notice in his regalia an early European influence. The cherokee were one of the first Native American tribes to dress like the Europeans and quickly traded their buckskins for clothing made of cotton. They wanted to be respected and honored for their The Cherokee were already a very civilized agriculturial people when the early Europeans first began to settle in America.