This story is excerpted from an interview conducted in Bennettsville in October 2026

Speaker 1: Thank you. So I’m a stomp dancer. Stomp dancing is what a lot of southeastern tribes do. It’s something that we’ve been able to preserve for hundreds of years, 1000s of years rather. And these ropes right here. This is something that a lot of the men wear. We wear it on a lot of times on the left side, which faces the fire, because we dance counterclockwise around a fire. 

Savannah Turgal: Oh, interesting. 

Speaker 1: And so we do that to kind of keep our shirts in place. But this is just part of a southeastern stomp dance regalia that men wear. 

Savannah Turgal:Do the colors have any significance? 

Speaker 1: So these are. I just chose these colors because I liked the combination. Well, thank you. However, a lot of people will choose their own color combination of what kind of suits what their spirit kind of calls them to have. 

Savannah Turgal: I love that. I love your entire ensemble as well. What’s the jar on your hip? 

Speaker 1: Yes. So this is a bone rattle right here that I use. Oh, sorry, I didn’t 

Savannah Turgal: see the handle. 

Speaker 1:You’re good. So I use this to lead out a lot of songs, so like the friendship dance or the four four corners or four directions dance, and this kind of just keeps the beat of whenever I’m singing. A lot of our women traditionally would wear turtle rattles around their legs, and they would keep the beat of the dance, but our ladies don’t have cans or rattles to wear, so I brought my rattle to help kind of guide our dances and songs. 

Savannah Turgal: Yeah, I got to catch a glimpse of it. It was really beautiful. Thank you. Is anybody invited into the dance? 

Speaker 1: Yes. So anybody is welcome to come and dance with us. The friendship dance is one of those dances where we invite everybody in the public to come and participate because we want to share this with them, and and it’s it’s a gift when we share those those songs and that music with others. At night, we usually have stomp dances, and those are usually by invitation. But we have a lot of people that stomp dance, and you go out to Oklahoma, down to Alabama, into Florida. That you know maybe they not they might not have heritage from these tribes, but they’ve been adopted in and welcome to come because these ways are you know we adoption is also part of our way too.