The first dance of the 2025 season at Oconaluftee Indian Village - the Bear Dance 🐻🐻🐻 “Yona” is the Cherokee word for bear. This dance shows the bears moving through the four seasons. It’s also a fun social dance where the “bears” that are dancing get to growl and tussle with each other. Oconaluftee Indian Village is an open air living history museum located in the cultural district of Cherokee, NC. We pride ourselves on sharing authentic Cherokee culture with our guests The Village is open t

Tickets for Oconaluftee Indian Village and Unto These Hills are on sale now! And we have a brand new ticketing system! Watch as we take you through our easier online checkout process, powered by @luduspresents Purchase single tickets to Oconaluftee Indian Village living history museum or Unto These Hills outdoor drama by selecting the attraction and then the date you’d like to attend. Select your ticket type, enter your info, and add to cart. For Unto These Hills, you can select your seat with o

The last Quail Dance of the 2025 season at Oconaluftee Indian Village in early November The Quail Dance is always a crowd favorite. In the dance, the men try to impress the ladies with their antics, similarly to how male birds try to impress female birds. Watch as the men get more and more creative throughout the dance The Quail Dance is a Cherokee social dance. Traditionally, social dances were done to socialize. These dances are easy enough so that anyone can participate, and are meant to be f

Did you know that the Cherokee didn’t have a “rain dance” to ask for rain? Our homelands, The Great Smoky Mountains, are a temperate rainforest. It rains all the time! So we don’t need to ask for rain, but we do give thanks for rain with the Bullfrog Dance The Bullfrog Dance is a social dance that would be done after a rain, since that’s when the bullfrogs come out. You’ll see that the dance is kind of like a game of Simon Says with the singer telling the dancers whah to do as the imitate the bu