The 2006 Mountain Festival is officially on for 15-17 September 2006, at the Princess Snowbird campground in Seneca Rocks, WV. The festival is free, but the campground has charges: $5/person/night for tent space that can be had when you arrive, but call ahead to reserve a cabin or “teepee.” There’s much more—including the significance of Seneca Rocks—on the Appalachian Confederation wiki.

Why should you be interested in a trek into the rocky, mountainous heart of West Virginia? Besides the all-important TAZ we create for a few precious days, last year’s Mountain Festival was incomplete. The Appalachian Confederation’s official birthday is still 17 September, but on the first year anniversary, it’s still a Confederation of just one tribe. We’re talking to a few tribes, from New York to Florida, about turning the aspiration of the Appalachian Confederation into a reality. If it’s an aspiration you share, then Seneca Rocks is where you need to be.

There’s going to be lots of fun—and we take our fun seriously—but the main event will be the Council on Saturday, 16 September, where we’ll admit new tribes, and establish the first clans and sodalities of the Confederation.

If you’re interested in joining us, let us know; the festival may be free, but we’d like an idea of who’s coming, all the same!

Anthropikon MMV

The first Mountain Festival was originally billed as “Anthropikon MMV,” but has since been retconned.

• Anthropikon MMV, the official announcement.
• Anthropikon MMV, a thread on the forums for preperation
• Anthropikon MMV, a Flickr photo set from the event
• Anthropikon MMV, an IshCon thread first preparing for, then recounting, the festival
• Who’s interested in another fall campout?, another IshCon thread initially proposing the notion
• Anthropikon MMV: Open Thread, an open thread on this blog with participants’ reactions.

The Mountain Festival is a festival of the Appalachian Confederation, of which the Tribe of Anthropik is a member. “Anthropikon,” as a convention hosted by the Tribe of Anthropik, may be resurrected at some later time. We’ve been kicking around ideas of an honest-to-gods convention in Pittsburgh, with speakers, a set agenda, and the whole deal, that would be entirely the domain of the Tribe of Anthropik, but that is an entirely separate event from this, and still very much in the thought-experiment stage.

The Appalachian Confederation

In the original proposal from September 2005, I proposed four main functions that the Appalachian Confederation could serve:

• Military defense. As a rhizome network, the Rhizome Army of Appalachia could provide defense for all members of the Confederation in a post-civilized context. Many people interested in building tribes worry about this prospect; the Appalachian Confederation can help.
• Communication. As a rhizome network, the Appalachian Confederation provides the “weak links” that provide for strong information processing and knowledge transmission. The Confederation can provide protocols for swift communications up and down the continent.
• Integration. Clans and sodalities cut across tribal lines, providing multiple dimensions of power. These “weak links” not oly help speed information, they also make the consolidation of power more difficult, and help to preserve egalitarianism. In the case of sodalities, they also provide a replacement for civilized unions, guilds, clubs, and secret societies.
• Risk management. By attracting diverse tribes—both primtivist tribes like the Tribe of Anthropik, and the kind of “occupational tribes” outlined by Quinn, the Confederation makes all tribes in it stronger through diversity.

If you are starting a tribe or tribal business in the Appalachian bioregion, consider joining us for the Mountain Festival, and possibly joining the Appalachian Confederation. You will strengthen not only your own tribe, but the whole Confederation with you.