Category: Amaya Larraneta
New National Museum of the American Indian Opened
WASHINGTON, Sep. 21 – With a colorful and joyful procession, thousands of Indians celebrated Tuesday the eagerly awaited opening of the National Museum of the American Indian.
Dressed up with deerskin regalia and wearing high feather headdresses, representatives of over 300 tribes gathered here for an event that marks a “recognition” of their historical contribution to the country and a “starting point” to heal the wounds of the past.
It was for Native Americans a big day for pride.
“It is goose pumping, your eyes moister. It gets down to your soul,” described yesterday former Wampanoag Mashpee’s Chief, Earl Mills. “Looking at a sea of people and seeing that 99% of them are Natives is exciting,” he said.
The procession honored the tribes and so does the new museum, which focuses not only on the history and traditions of the first inhabitants of the Americas but on their lives and current struggles.
Located on the Mall, the Smithsonian Institution’s 18th museum is only steps away from the U.S. Capitol, “a symbolic setting to honor the traditions and achievements of the Native people,” said Lawrence Small, the Secretary of the Smithsonian said last week.
The Smithsonian 18th is the largest museum in the world dedicated exclusively to Native Americans, plus it lets them tell their side of the story.
Almost a hundred representatives of the Wampanoag, both the Mashpee and the Aquinnah, traveled to the opening of the museum, which expects to get over 4 million visitors a year.
The Massachusetts representation walked proudly along the Mall and listened to the prominent American Indians that inaugurated the building, among them Alejandro Toledo, the indigenous president of Peru and U.S. senators Ben Nighthorse of Colorado and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii.
The procession was followed by several performances which included story telling, music and arts and crafts exhibitions. In total, the capital has planned for a six-day long festival tribute to the museum opening.
Pottery Harvard professor and Mashpee Ramona Peters and regalia maker, Anita Peters, were both present in the festivities schedule.
In a recent interview on the phone, Peters said she was grateful for a museum that “honors our history” but concede she would have liked to see more of the Wampanoag in the exhibition.
“After all we were the first contact people. It was my nation that met the pilgrims,” she said.
THE MUSEUM.
In the five story curvilinear museum, made of rough limestone, the Smithsonian institution displays more than 8,000 indigenous objects.
Richard West, the director of the museum and a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, recommended that visitors always look “beyond the objects.”
The shows “are presented with amazing and thoughtful details designed to help understand the Natives,” West said, pointing out that the main theater, with its twinkling constellations and wooden walls, was designed to represent a clearing in a forest, a typical Native American story-telling enclave.
When visitors enter the building, they will find the Potomac rotunda that soars 120 feet to a skylight. Visitors will then take an elevator to the fourth floor, to sit in the dark of the Lelawi Theater, a 120-seat circular space, where they will see and hear in several screens and the ceiling a 13-minute multi-media experience introducing the Native Americans and their concerns about sovereignty and land.
The Museum has three main areas: “Our Universes,” a portrait of how Native Americans understand the world and give meaning to their lives through their group ceremonies; “Our Peoples,” where selected communities share their history–a space that will change from time to time to represent the majority of the tribes; and “Our Lives,” an exhibit of how some groups deal with the question of identity.
In the corridors with they will find on display various artifacts, from costumes to jewelry to arms or toys. A show with works by contemporary artists completes the walk.
Visitors also can sample typical indigenous meals such as buffalo burgers and fried bread at the cafeteria.
Museum staff member Ceni Myles, a Native American from Connecticut and a half Mohegan, didn’t think the under representation of the North East should deter visitors from New England.
Myles said this was a time for all Native Americans to celebrate.
“With native people, there is no need for borders,” said Myles. “This is a space for all natives to share and learn from each other.”
