TURTLE CALENDER

We, of the Southern Band Tuscarora Indian Tribe use the Tuscarora Calender to plan our Festivals of the seasons.

The calender is based on the Mud Turtle's back sections. If you were to pick up ANY turtle and looked at it's back you would find that each and every one has the same 13 sections on the interior portion and the same 28 smaller sections along the edge. Thus for us there are 13 months with 28 days each, and each month has a moon and a celebration, we follow the calender counter-clockwise, versus the European clockwise fashion.

Our celebrations are now held every other month and are a wonderful time when we get together to enjoy all the different foods, socialize and have meetings of Clanmothers, Council and Tribe members. The children play amongst themselves, we all dance and sing, it's a truly fun time for all of us, enabling all of us to learn as well as teach our children their heritage and culture to pass on to their children when it is their turn.

Return to Table of Contents

This page recreataed on November 29, 2001 by Pam Miller Thomas