Gulf Wars Tournament Recreates The Middle Ages - WHLT 22 Connecting the Pine Belt
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HATTIESBURG, Miss. -The Middle Ages of the 17th century have been long gone, but all week long there's been thousands of people who've traveled across the world to recreate that past in the Pine Belt
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international group with more than 30,000 members. About 4,000 of their members have been at the Kings Arrow Ranch in Lumberton, all week long for the Gulf Wars tournament.
They dress in traditional clothing and camp out in tents.
"We have a ravine battle where we have two sides who are seeking to meet in the middle and recreate the way they fought in the Middle Ages," said Sheila Doughty, media specialist for the event.
Doughty said, although the battle does get rough, it always comes to a peaceful end.
"We call this a war without enemies because even though we choose sides and we fight, we all come together at the end of the day and we're friends," she said
Outside of the battles there's art, equestrian training with horses and a fencing activity called rapier combat.
"Three days a week we get together in the basement of a local college and we practice," said Theorn Rutyna, member of SCA.
"We're using real swords with tips to protect us from getting hurt," Rutyna said.
He said rapier combat is the complete opposite of what he does for a living.
"I'm a computer engineer," said Rutyna. "When you work with electronics all day, the last thing you want to do is go home and stare at a computer screen."
Both Doughty and Rutyna said the most common thing people ask them, is why they like doing this?
"You meet people from all over the world that you would have never met," said Doughty.
"My kid brother is a senior engineer for Nissan Subaru and kind of thinks Jim crazy," Rutyna aid.
To both of them, the experience is about learning and preserving a time in history that we can never get back.
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