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Official Kanuche Festival T-Shirt by Murv Jacob available for purchase at the Heritage Center Museum Shop and the Echota House Restaurant.

TAHLEQUAH, OK - The Cherokee Heritage Center will host the first annual Kanuche Festival on October 18 and 19. The Kanuche Festival is sponosed by the Cherokee Heritage Center, the Tahlequah Main Street Association and the Tahlequah Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Kanuche Festival will feature live music, kanuche making demonstrations, arts and crafts, children's activities, including pony rides, and food vendors. There will also be an arrowhead hunt for children ages 10 and under on Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m.

Entertainers scheduled to perform include the Oklahoma Kids, the Cherokee Children's Choir, the American Girlz, Lista Murphy, Native Circle, and storytelling by Robert Lewis.

Kanuche is an ancient traditional food made out of hickory nuts, filled with so much protein people could live off of it for weeks. A Kanuche ball is approximately the size of a baseball and is made from the meat of hickory nuts. A ball this size will usually make one and a half gallons of Kanuche. It usually takes 150 hickory nuts to make a ball. The ball is now ready to be cooked in a pot of water. The recipe can vary after that, some cooks prefer to serve hominy with it and others use rice.

The Kanuche Festival Committee has printed t-shirts for the event. The t-shirt was designed by artist Murv Jacob and features animals, includes the Cherokee syllabary and asks the important question to anyone wishing to make Kanuche -- Got Balls? The t-shirts are for sale at the Cherokee Heritage Center Museum Shop and the Echota House Restaurant.

Call the Cherokee Heritage Center for more information, phone: 918-456-6007.