When George Gustav Heye acquired an Apache deerskin shirt during an engineering assignment in Arizona in 1897, no one knew it was the start of what would become the world’s largest collection of American Indian artifacts.
While other Americans ignored the accomplishments of American Indians, Heye preserved them for future generations. Over the years, the New York engineer-turned investment banker amassed more than 800,000 artifacts, caring for his prized objects as director of the Museum of the American Indian, which he established in New York City. After his death in 1957, however, Heye’s collection no longer received significant attention. Many of the items were simply packed away in a Brooklyn warehouse.
In 1989 members of Congress recognized the importance of preserving the collection, passing legislation to purchase the Heye collection and to build a museum in which to preserve it.
-Tim Fernholz
Last Tuesday, the National Museum of the American Indian opened on the Mall, adding a fitting tribute to the first Americans in Washington D.C.
“The museum makes the Mall far more complete,” W. Richard West, Jr., Director of the NMAI, said. West has been a key figure in the planning of the museum, overseeing the design and construction of the NMAI. Under West’s supervision, the museum raised more than $100 million to pay for the museum’s $199 million price tag.
Little about the NMAI can be called traditional; it is far more than a showcase for pieces ancient history. “It is a very forward-looking museum rather than a backward-looking one,” Lucy Maddox, a Georgetown English professor who specializes in American Indian literature, said. “An Indian museum makes you expect artifacts, but this is very much a museum about living culture.”
Determined that the building should incorporate American Indian ideals, particularly a oneness with nature, the NMAI held design dialogues with various tribes throughout the Western Hemisphere. American Indian consultants were also used to help with the overall layout. What has emerged from this collaborative effort is a space that uses traditional symbols, natural colors and nature-inspired design.
Influence for the exterior, for example, came from the cliff dwellings of the southwestern Anasazi tribe. The 250,000 square foot limestone-based structure gives the appearance of a massive rock shaped by centuries of wind and rain.
The building’s main entrance faces east toward the rising sun. It blends perfectly with the diverse fauna that covers the 4.25-acre site. More than 150 species of native plants surround the building in an effort to create natural environment.
Visitors enter the museum through an awe-inspiring, 120-foot high domed foyer called “the Potomac,” a space for large gatherings and performances.
The ceiling of the foyer features a skylight that floods the space with natural light. The walls are woven with copper, giving them the look of a woven basket. While the space recognizes traditional ideas, it also celebrates the contemporary American Indian through its use of modern materials and design elements.
This balance between past, present and future is seen throughout the museum’s three core exhibits: “Our Universes,” “Our Lives” and “Our Peoples.” Each seeks to explore a different aspect of American Indian history and culture during different time periods.
Visitors start their tour with “Who We Are,” a film designed to introduce them to the ideas they will encounter in the museum. Unlike traditional film presentations, this one uses three different screens, the domed ceiling, woven blankets and a large acrylic “rock,” to surround the visitor, mimicking an outdoor environment.
“Our Universes” is an exhibit focusing on eight tribes’ views of creation and the celestial cycle.
“We picked the eight tribes for their annual ceremonies,” NMAI curator Emil Her Many Horses said. “Native people have different ways of understanding the world around them.”
The exhibit follows the solar year, examining each tribe’s celebrations and ceremonies through tribal legends and video presentations.
Though conventional in presentation, “Our Peoples” weaves a compelling story of strength and adversity through objects one would expect to find in a natural history museum. Large display cases filled with coins, weaponry, original documents and other objects of European influence teach the visitors about the American Indians’ struggle for survival after the arrival of Columbus. The exhibit focuses, however, not only on the losses faced, but also on the power to overcome adversity. American Indians learned over the years to utilize the church, treaties and even European weaponry to keep their traditional culture alive.
The final permanent exhibit, “Our Lives,” focuses on the 21st century. It examines the many questions tribal communities must face in regards to native language, traditional religion and self-identity. The exhibit features eight groups, including the urban American Indian community of Chicago. Even while living in a metropolis, the windy city’s Indian residents have kept alive much of their culture through a close-knit, supportive organization.
While the exhibits are permanent, the tribes upon which they focus will change every two to eight years. In order to include as many tribes as possible, the museum also has an exhibit in which visitors have the chance to closely examine more than 3,000 objects from the museum’s permanent collection.
The changing gallery’s opening exhibit is a testament to the vitality of contemporary American Indian culture. The exhibit, called “Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Alan Houser,” will be on display through fall 2005. Both are given credit for bringing modernism into Native American art through their experimentation with styles and mediums. Houser is best known for his sculptures, many of which can be seen in the gallery, and Morrison is known for his paintings of color and light, which are also on display.
Though many of the museums objects are steeped in history, the NMAI stresses its ever-evolving nature.
“It is much more than a celebration of the past, it is also an ongoing testament to living cultures,” Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small said.
The Museum is located at 4th Street and Independence Avenue, S.W. and is within easy walking distance of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day of the year except Dec. 25.
-David Parkinson
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Jared Chavez (CAS ‘05) is one of the few Native Americans on Georgetown’s campus. He is currently featured in one of the NMAI’s exhibits.
Jared Chavez (CAS ‘05) has seen the National Museum of the American Indian grow over the last four years from a construction project to a monument. As a member of the San Felipe Pueblo Indian Tribe and one of the few American Indians on campus, Chavez also has a direct connection to the museum: His sister is a head curator of one of the exhibits.
After touring the final product last week, he is proud of the work done at the NMAI and hopeful for its future.
“In Washington, you’re either going to Cactus Cantina [a Mexican restaurant in Glover Park], they’ve got little displays there, or the Natural History Museum,” Chavez said. “There was never really a good representation here of Native American life.”
“Our Lives,” the exhibit Chavez’s sister curates, focuses on eight contemporary American Indian communities.
“There are still a lot of stereotypes out there as far as Native American life,” Chavez said. “People have one generic view of Native Americans-teepees, buckskin, that’s the generalized thing … this gives a real view of people’s lives.”
When he arrived on campus as a first-year, Chavez joined the Native American Student Association at Georgetown. By his sophomore year, he was president of the organization, which had three members at the time. The Office of the Registrar currently reports that there are 14 self-identified American Indian students on campus. In past years, NASA at Georgetown has held Powwows, events displaying traditional American Indian dance and culture. Chavez is now hoping that new Native American students, inspired by the museum, will be able to reinvigorate their culture on campus.
Chavez’s non-American Indian friends at Georgetown have also been supportive of the NMAI, visiting the museum late at night during a special 24-hour opening and joining his family in a traditional dinner his mother prepared during a recent visit to campus.
Chavez credits his parents for encouraging him to seek an education and added that many American Indians lack the means to seek further schooling.
“The Native Americans are still living on a level of poverty. You have exceptions, like my family-my dad’s been an artist for 27 years. You really break out of that mold there, but you have other families who are barely getting by, they’re still on welfare,” Chavez said, adding that he was lucky to be able to pursue his education away from the reservation.
Not afraid to criticize what he sees as some American Indians’ lack of ambition, Chavez worries that too many tribes are pinning their hopes on casinos to pull them out of poverty.
“It’s an endless cycle of being stuck in one position, especially if you don’t have that encouragement from your parents,” Chavez said. “It’s kind of sad.”
Working as an artist for the last 11 years, Chavez is studying digital art and hopes to continue creating art as his career. While he will be attending the Revere Academy in San Francisco, Calif. to further his studies, Chavez does plan to live near his reservation later in life.
“Before I came to Georgetown, there was no way in hell I was going to live in the Pueblo,” Chavez said. “Living out here has made me realize I want to live in New Mexico, near enough that I can still participate in events, but I’d like to have my own space.”
-Tim Fernholz
