Indian basketry events at Grand Village this week posted Thursday, November 12th, 2009 @ 8:00 am  E-mail Story |  Print Story  The Grand Village of the Natchez Indians will present a "Basket Conservation Workshop" on Friday, November 13, at 6:30 p.m. and an "Indian Basket Day" with basket demonstrations and sales on Saturday, November 14, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Admission is free to both events. The public is invited to bring baskets to the Basket Conservation Workshop on Friday, November 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the museum auditorium for evaluation and advice on preservation. Cindy Gardner, Director of Collections, Museum Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and Tommie Rodgers, Registrar, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, will assist basket owners with information on how baskets should be stored and cared for in order to maintain their beauty and value. Both the Museum of Mississippi History and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art maintain large collections of American Indian baskets. Indian Basket Day on Saturday, November 14, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., will feature basket weavers from the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chitimacha, Koasati, Alabama, and Seminole tribes, who will demonstrate and sell both split cane and pine needle baskets. These craftspeople come from Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Refreshments will be available, including Choctaw fry bread and tacos. The Basket Conservation Workshop and Basket Day are part of a Southeastern Indian Basket Symposium co-sponsored by the National Park Service, Northwestern Louisiana State University, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The symposium is aimed at promoting and preserving the basket weaving traditions among the Southeastern tribes. The first symposium of this kind took place in 2002 at Natchitoches, Louisiana, when many of these basket weavers gathered together for the first time. Thanks to a grant from the National Park Service through the Cane River Creole National Historical Park at Natchitoches, this follow-up symposium is being held here in Natchez. For more information call 601-446-6502. The Grand Village of the Natchez Indians is located at 400 Jefferson Davis Boulevard, one-half mile east of U.S. Highway 61 South near Natchez Community Hospital.