Auburn University’s Native American and Indigenous Alliance held their Spring Cultural Festival on the Campus Green on Saturday, March 29, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival featured dancers, drummers, vendors, speakers and cultural demonstrations.
The day began with greetings from NAIA President Emily Day, senior in philanthropy and nonprofit studies and a member of the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi tribe.
“What I want you to take away from this event is the beauty of our diversities. Every tribe represented here is unique, each having to overcome their own trials and each having their own histories,” Day said. “I want you to listen to the drums and the songs and feel the passion of the dancers, and look at everyone's beautiful regalia and appreciate the work that has come from these artists' hands.”
Day and her organization have been working for months to prepare the festival and spread the word. Her mission was to include multiple tribes from the entire Southeast, not just from Alabama.
“This is actually our biggest event ever. We'll have the White Horse Singers, which is our drum group, and they play a lot of powwows in the area and just in the South. Then, we'll have dancers, and we have art vendors and we have food vendors. It’s just a fun little festival for everyone to come out and enjoy. It's open to the community,” Day said of the festival.
Auburn is a land-grant university, with the land originally belonging to the Muscogee Creek Nation. Day’s goal was to pay homage to the Muscogee Nation and all Native American students at Auburn.
“The biggest thing to me is that we are still here and also that we're all related. It doesn't matter what your race is, what your gender is, what your sexuality is. We're all made in the same image, and we're all just here as human beings, just together. So, I just love to celebrate our differences and our similarities through our culture,” Day said.
Each tribe at the festival has their own language, history and culture, yet all were able to come together to celebrate and enlighten others on Native American history.
Tents were set up throughout the Campus Green, some displaying artifacts and regalia, others selling handmade jewelry and dreamcatchers.
These are handmade items created by Native American people, whether they are current tribal members or their ancestors were, on March 29, 2025.
“We're coming out here today to honor our ancestors, our culture and our heritage. It's pretty awesome, because I think their stories need to be told. That's something that we need to keep doing, remembering who [our ancestors] were and what they went through and honoring that,” said Michelle Gilmore, tribal chief for the Southeastern Muscogee Nation.
The festival featured many presentations, from stomp dances to drums to flute performances.
“We're called a southern drum. There's southern drums and there's northern drums, northern drums usually sing in a lot higher pitch. We play a lot of the old traditional songs from the older tribes, and we write some of our own songs,” said Faron Weeks, a member of the Echota Cherokee Tribe. “It's awesome, just getting to meet all the people, and you learn about the tribes and the heritage of these places.”
A variety of attendees, from students to families with young children, actively participated in and enjoyed the festivities.
“It's cool that Auburn does things like this to get people involved and to let everyone learn about different kinds of cultures and things like that. It’s fun,” said Alex Hamilton, freshman in electrical engineering, who attended the festival with friends.
As the afternoon drew to a close and the rhythms of the drums softened on the Campus Green, NAIA concluded their Spring Cultural Festival. The festival brought together diverse tribes and members of the Auburn community, fostering an environment for cultural exchange and learning about Native American history and traditions.
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Sam Vise, senior in journalism, is the Assistant Culture Editor for The Auburn Plainsman. She has previously served as a culture writer and community reporter.
