Before the 69th annual National Folk Festival got under way last night at Richmond's riverfront, members of several Virginia Indian tribes sprinkled tobacco on the ground as a blessing.

"We are very strong believers that we need to bless the Creator, that we appreciate the opportunity to be on the land," said Wayne B. Adkins, the second assistant chief of the Chickahominy Tribe.

The Virginia Indian Intertribal Dance Group and Drum kicked off the event with a chant and a drumbeat of welcoming, followed by traditional dances.

Last night, and for the rest of the weekend, the expansive grounds of the festival were, and will be, filled with tens of thousands of fans, dozens of performers and at least seven different vendors selling funnel cakes.

This is the third and final year the Richmond area plays host to the national festival. Next year, the three-year event moves to Butte, Mont., a fact highlighted by a symbolic handing over of a six-string guitar from Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder to George Everett of Mainstreet Uptown Butte. The civic organization is partly responsible for attracting the festival to Montana next year.

Julia Olin of the National Council for the Traditional Arts said the festival is a way to bring communities together while stimulating the economy and helping to re-establish a region's neglected area, such as a downtown.

But it is more than that, she said.

"We think that it's important to bring the nation's traditional heritage, through the arts, to the public," she said. "In this world where we are assaulted by a fabricated culture, it's important to remember that we all come from somewhere, that we all have traditions."

The festival is a massive undertaking, requiring the cooperation of government and business institutions, Olin said, and it cannot function without the work of hundreds of volunteers. One of those volunteers, Josie Whisler, was part of the omnipresent Bucket Brigade, a blaze-orange T-shirt-wearing army carrying buckets in which the audience to the free event can place donations.

"Give generously to keep it running," Whisler said.

Although the National Folk Festival ships off to Butte, Richmond will carry on next year with a similar event, the first Richmond Folk Festival. That was the plan all along.

"I don't see this as an ending, " Olin said. "I see it as a beginning."

Contact Daniel Neman at (804) 649-6408 or DNeman@timesdispatch.com.