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American
Indian Museum Offers Unique Voice |
Posted:
09.22.04
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The names of many places in the United States are derived from
American Indian words -- Chicago, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky --
yet many of us know little about the first peoples in this land.
Perhaps this will change with the opening of the National Museum
of the American Indian this week in Washington, D.C.
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 The
254,000 square foot Museum of the American Indian is the newest
addition to the Smithsonian Institution. Situated close to the U.S.
Capitol, it may be the last major addition to the museums and monuments
that make up the National Mall, an irony clear to many native visitors.
"Kind of fitting," Merv George Sr., a Hupa medicine man, told the
Washington Post. "First peoples here, last place on the Mall."
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Native voices |
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For 15-year-old Hupa Emmilee Risling, the mission of the museum
- to present and encourage the contemporary living culture of
the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere in their own
voices - is in step with her thinking about herself and her culture.
"My culture is really important to me," Emmilee, vice
president of her Native American Club in Hoopa, Calif., told the
Washington Post. "That's the way I've been raised."
Nicole Soulier, 19, an Ojibwa Indian from Bad River, Wis., who
joined the colorful procession of thousands who celebrated the
opening of the museum, agreed.
 "It's
very important to represent where I come from, to celebrate with
all the other nations," she told the New York Times.
According to museum spokesman Tom Sweeney, the museum's origins
make it unique.
"Each tribe or native community represented has selected
the objects that represent them and speak in their own voice -
and that's the first time it's been done this way -- from the
architecture, public programs to exhibitions," he explained.
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A living
museum |
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Attempting to avoid traditional perceptions of museums as places
highlighting the past, the NMAI creators hope visitors will recognize
the active offerings of native peoples today.
 "Visitors
will leave this museum experience knowing that Indians are not
part of history," founding director, W. Richard West, a Southern
Cheyenne, said in a statement. "We are still here and making
vital contributions to contemporary American culture and art."
The museum's three permanent exhibitions "Our Universes,"
"Our Lives" and "Our Peoples" focus on the
philosophy, history and identity of native peoples from Alaska
to Chile. Exhibitions featuring 24 tribes are on display at the
opening. The museum plans to rotate two groups per year in order
to represent all the tribes within eight years.
The various exhibits will showcase over 8,000 pieces from the
complete collection of over 800,000 objects. Many came from the
personal collection of George Gustav Heye, who amassed the most
extensive collection of Native American art and artifacts in the
world.
 The
artifacts range from the distant past to the present. A dog figure
made in Mexico 1,500 years ago sits next to another by a Cherokee
artist in 1972. Cheyenne moccasins made in Oklahoma in 1870 are
alongside beaded Kiowa sneakers from New Mexico made just this
year. The modernist sculptures of New Mexico artist Allan Houser,
an Apache who died in 1994, join elegant 15th-century gold masks
-- many of which were melted down to make European coins and swords.
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A positive
message |
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Many see the museum as a way to let go of a painful past and
start anew.
"I look at this whole museum opening as an opportunity for
healing, for optimism," Dave Anderson, who heads the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, told the New York Times.
 While
others agree that the positive message fills them with pride,
they think that the exhibits don't touch enough on the atrocities
that Native Americans have suffered over five centuries.
"We know that Old Glory should have blood dripping from
every star for wiping out native peoples, and that is not reflected
here," Dwain Camp, of the Oklahoma-based Ponca tribe, told
the Washington Post.
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Native sensibilities |
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 The
building itself mirrors native sensibilities. Designed by Canadian
Blackfoot architect Dougles Cardinal, who left the project amid
a legal dispute in 1998, the outer shell is made of Kasota limestone
from Minnesota. The color and dramatic curves are meant to suggest
a native landscape. True to tradition, it faces East toward the
rising sun.
"The form of the building is really organic and curvilinear
because we wanted this building to appear as if it's an abstraction
of a natural rock formation that's been carved by wind and water
over time," said architect Duane Blue Spruce.
 The
exterior landscape features a wetlands area and important native
crops such as corn and squash.
"The outside is an extension of the exhibit. It is an exhibit.
It is who we are. From the native perspective, one shouldn't see
the line between the building and the earth. That line shouldn't
be there," said Donna House, a Navajo landscape architect
and botanist.
--
Compiled for NewsHour Extra by Annie Schleicher
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American schools and financial aid should be only for legal citizens of the United States. There should be no exceptions to this.
