Jimmie Lee Sanders, dressed here in 19th century clothing, interacts with children.

Young participants at UA’s Moundville Native American Festival learn how to grind corn.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Native American artists, craftspeople and musicians will entertain and educate visitors during the annual Moundville Native American Festival, Oct. 6-9, at The University of Alabama’s Moundville Archaeological Park, some 15 miles south of campus off state Highway 69.

Named a Top 20 Tourism Event by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism and Travel, the festival also features Native American foods, children’s activities, dance, storytelling, crafts and games, living history re-enactments, an arts market, archaeology in action, and other demonstrations. Last year’s festival attracted some 17,000 people.

Admission is $6 for adults and $4 for children, students and groups of 10 or more. Call 205/371-2572 for group registration. Numerous school groups are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, so the general public is encouraged to attend on Friday, Oct. 8 and Saturday, Oct. 9. Activities are scheduled from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. both days.

This year’s festival features Ulali, a female trio who has performed their Native American music at the Olympics, the Kennedy and Lincoln centers and at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The group has been featured multiple times on National Public Radio and performed with Ronnie Robertson on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Ulali, whose name means the song bird “wood thrush,” will perform at noon on both Friday, Oct. 8 and Saturday, Oct. 9. For more info on the group see http://www.ulali.com.

Another festival highlight will be the talents of TerryLee WHETSTONe, an award winning Cherokee artist and American Indian flute performer. WHETSTONe will be featured at noon and at 2 p.m. on Oct. 6 and 7 and at 9:30 a.m. and at 3:30 p.m. on both Oct. 8 and 9.

Nicknamed “The Big Apple of the 14th century," the Moundville site is a 320-acre National Historic Landmark of prehistoric Indian mounds, campgrounds, picnic areas and nature trails, with a riverbend lodge and a museum containing choice artifacts.

From A.D. 1000 to 1500, Mississippian Indians constructed large earthworks in Moundville, topped by temples, council houses, and the homes of their nobility. Moundville Archaeological Park contains more than two dozen of these surviving flat-topped mounds, remnants of a ceremonial and economic center whose trade routes extended across large portions of North America.

At its peak, in about 1250, Moundville was the largest city north of Mexico, home to about 3,000 people. The park, located on the banks of the Black Warrior River south of Tuscaloosa, preserves portions of what was once the most powerful prehistoric Native American community in North America.