And then we open the spaces together.

So it was a it's a nice, nice thing.

So it is a spot only and architects eye can find something we should have worked on that corner more Lou.

You see that corner right there that we have said that.

Yeah.

That sharp turn.

You saw it too, right?

Building designers and native Oklahomans John Paul Jones and Lou Weller have helped create a new work of art along Washington's Museum Row on the National Mall.

It was a hard thing to build because there was no straight lines, but it's, it all braided itself together really well.

The concept was to make it look like a landform that was formed by rain and water with the.

No, nothing is straight in nature.

So that's where the concept of the museum came from.

There were also countless meetings with native peoples across the Western Hemisphere.

John Paul heard more than his share of suggestions for what was wanted and expected in the design.

An elderly, northern Indian woman came up to me and she said, I better see some of our culture in this building when I come and see it, when it's built in, I'm just scared to be good, you know?

Like, how are you going to do this?

Because you can't make it a teepee.

You can't make it a longhouse.

You can't make it a pueblo.

You gotta you gotta speak to the diverse Indian people across this country.

So the architects turned to what is natural nature, something every tribe, everywhere has in common.

They wanted to make the building appear as if shaped by the hands of time, not man.

And that means you're probably not going to have any straight lines anywhere in this building.

And there isn’t.

John Paul Jones is one of the nation's most respected architects, but he didn't always have that in mind for his future.

When he was growing up in Oklahoma.

Eventually, though, he was drawn into the profession.

I was always a good artist.

I could draw really well.

And, the schools kind of focused me towards, architecture.

The school he attended in Okmulgee was abandoned and then burned years ago.

Today it is almost hidden by an overgrowth of trees and weeds and mostly forgotten, except in the minds of former students like John Paul Jones.

John Paul lives in Seattle now, but he grew up in Okmulgee during the 40s amid hard times and hard feelings.

I just remember it was, it was tough.

Indian people had a tough existence in the community that I grew up in.

And, but, what I enjoyed most was being outside and running around and hunting rabbits.

I found that to be something that just has it gone away from my memory.

And, it was a wonderful time.

I like things come up as I get older.

Now I'm in my 60s and things come up with, from that early existence that my grandmother and other people passed on to me that I'm trying to put into, architectural designs that we do for Indian people now around the country.

No doubt this is the grandest of his grand designs.

And as much detail was placed on the landscaping around the building as on the building itself.

Jim Pepper Henry, a member of Oklahoma's Carr Tribe, is the museum's assistant director.

So if you walk outside, you'll see tobacco growing on the side of the museum.

You'll see corn growing on the side of the museum.

We've, brought back the wetlands.

This museum was built on an area that was originally wetlands before the U.S.

Capitol was built.

And so we've reclaimed some of the wetlands, and we're attracting migratory birds back to this site.

So even walking on the grounds of this museum, it feels like a native place.

Even the old creek that flowed through here more than a century ago has been recreated.

And in the artificial stream bed, under the waterfall and all around the museum are what the Indian people call grandfather rocks.

They are the greeters.

They they contain the spirit of the native people.

And they greet the visitors to the museum.

Indian people consider everything a living.

Everything's alive.

Everything's around you rocks.

Everything's got life to.

It's got a spirit to it.

And especially the rocks.

They were the beginning of the world here.

Really.

So there was a great search on for the right grandfather rocks.

That really represented the spirit of the native people.

Whether viewed from the outside or the inside, it is an experience to be shared.

We're here to be a venue for the voices of native peoples.

We're not here to interpret what native peoples feel, or believe.

We're here to provide a venue for native peoples to express themselves.

And that's what's special about this place.

Turned out good.

It turned out real good.

The dawn of a new day brings a sight unseen before in the world.

Oh, the rising sun, long symbolic to native people everywhere.

Illuminates an amazing scene of togetherness on Washington's National Mall.

Hey, Hey, Hey, hey.

I. Oh, hi.

Hey.

This may be the largest gathering of native peoples in recorded history for the opening of this museum, we have people come in from all over the Western Hemisphere, from nearly every indigenous community in the Western Hemisphere.

They've come dressed in the tradition.

Rich regalia of a proud past for Oklahoma Comanches like Malo.

No Nai.

Showing off their heritage is all about instilling pride in their people.

And it's very important in that that we're going to have all these nations here one particular day to come together and be proud of who they are.

I think that's very important, wherever they go.

And also for the young ones to see, you know, that we are proud of our heritage and proud of our people and proud to be Native American, and that we still exist today.

They still sing the old songs with pride and purpose.

I. Joleen Schonshin has come here with her husband and her people from Elgin.

Yeah, I'm very proud to be a part of it.

It's such an overwhelming feeling to see all of these, these tribes here, and we're all together for one purpose.

And that just goes to show you how powerful we can be and how and how in-sync we are with each other.

Yeah.

Oh I know, oh, that was good.

That was good.

That was good for Edmond Tate.

Never quiet.

The son of a Comanche chief.

And nationally known artist, this procession of native nations is about honoring those who've gone before and those who will walk future paths.

I got some, children coming up in this world, and.

And one of these days, they're going to be looking back in the past, and, and one of these days, this is going to be history.

And they're going to say, my dad, my uncles, my, relatives were part of that.

And they're going to get to see something that, native culture is, real rich and that it's still here and it's being preserved today.

Though his father, the legendary Doc Tate, never Koya, has already passed from this life to the next.

He is never far from Edmond's thoughts.

Today, he is even closer.

Today, I feel, very honored.

I'm wearing this, war bonnet here that my dad used to wear.

Many places that he showed, many places that, he shared his culture.

This, war bonnet here is over 200 years old.

And he wore it with a lot of pride and, esteem that he had.

And I feel that today, and I feel that, I'm preserving it, and I'm wearing it.

And this is the first time I brought it out since since the memorial that we had for it.

To those of you within sight and sound of this occasion, and, descend from those who came welcome to Native America.

And I say to those of you who descended from their native ancestors, who are already here, welcome home.

LED by native Oklahoma and museum director Rick West they are on the move again.

Assistant American Indian Museum director Jim Pepper Henry from Ponca City, believes this march, at least, symbolically reverses those of the past.

I will say, at least for me, a member of the Caw nation and also, Muskogee Creek.

The Native Nations procession has a lot of meaning, has a lot of metaphor, because we will be walking from west to east, one way back toward the rising sun.

Back home for many Oklahoma tribes like the Cherokees, our kids, we've told them that it's it's a once in a lifetime of something they'll tell their grandchildren.

You know, this is.

And as we're walking along here, I'm just kind of overcome because these kids are singing songs that were said on the Trail of Tears, and we're walking again.

You, Yeah, definitely making me go here.

I need a new mask.

You said it's a steal.

Me go here.

Members of the Chickasaw tribe to steal, whose ancestors also walked from their homes in the southeastern United States to Oklahoma, see and appreciate the symbolism to.

Think there's a lot of to it.

And a lot of our dances, when we start out, we will start out facing east.

It kind of pay homage to our homeland, because even though we've been in Oklahoma now since, you know, the 1850s, we still considered our southeast, our home.

And so, you know, this marching from west to east does present us with a great opportunity to kind of come, come back and show people that, you know, we're not gone.

We're not forgotten.

Indians in America are still here.

And in places they've seldom been.

Fourth District Representative Tom Cole is one of only a handful of Native Americans serving in the U.S.

Congress.

He, too, is a member of the Chickasaw tribe.

It's an extraordinary moment.

Native American history, I think, you know, obviously celebratory, but very reflective as well.

And you see the diversity and the magnificence of Native American culture.

And it's a very defining moment, I think, in the country's history and certainly the history of Native Americans.

Finally, there is a place where all the stories can be told.

The National Museum of the American Indian features Native Americans in their own words, describing the countless heartaches along history's long road and the triumphs too.

More important than All the yesterdays are, all the tomorrows still to come is the Mohawk of Council Bluffs.

It is hard to see the future with tears in your eyes.

We have survived.

And from a cultural standpoint, have even triumphed against great odds.

We are here right now, 40 million indigenous people throughout the Americas and in hundreds of culturally distinct cultural communities.

And we will insist that we remain a part of the cultural future of the Americas.

And then request the new museum's director and a member of Oklahoma's Southern Cheyenne tribe offered these words in his native tongue to open the museum and the first Americans festival.

They are not here.

Jim, Sam, not Jim and Sam, which thou hast not taken.

Hawaii.

Safe haven.

Jane.

Nisha.

It in English.

Ma'am, the great mystery walks beside you and walks beside your work, and touches all the good that you attempt.

Yes.

Can I dream that a buffalo that once.

Elk.

What is this Buffalo hard rock pipe stem is a member of the Otoe tribe from northern Oklahoma.

But he understands and believes also in the old Southern Cheyenne, saying, my grandfathers and grandmothers, you know, they prayed real hard for me when I was a little baby, you know, that I'd be successful in life.

I don't get anything, as far as you know, unless God gives it to us.

That's the way I believe.

So I'm blessed, you know, to have my son here with me.

Rock and Kingston Pipe Stem are drum makers.

The Smithsonian invited them to the festival to share their skills.

Rock not only passes his art onto his son, he is passing down the old language.

The words and the songs meld in oh thou.

It'll help him immensely, you know, he, he's been dancing ever since.

He was really little, like three years old.

And it gives him notoriety and gives him respect and it gives him a chance to, you know, think that there's somebody, you know, and a lot of times, you know, a long time ago, like when they put the Indians in boarding schools and stuff, you know, they took their language from them.

And today it's blossoming now to where we have this big festival here.

And that's what's that's it's so awesome about it here.

You get if you got your kids involved and it gives them pride, you know what they proud of who they are.

You know.

And you know that's that's what I enjoy the room actually where the hide sits on that's different and hides if it feels real thick.

And you didn't sand that, it wouldn’t have a real good sound like that.

It is all a part of what will now become an annual celebration of spirit, tradition and diversity at a place where the peoples of the Americas can come together with a mutual understanding and respect.

In a way, it is the answer to a prayerful plea offered more than a century ago by one of the great Indian leaders, Chief Joseph.

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, there need be no trouble.

Treat all men alike.

Give them all and even a chance to live and grow up.

The world is.

All men were made by the same great spirit.

They are brothers.

Oh oh no oh no no no no one.

Oh, good.

Words that have been forgotten more often than remembered over the years.

But there is no better time or place to honor the moon, you know?

And, do, this thing.

Right?

I mean, but, 0101.