National Indian Museum Faces First Year Challenges

Interior National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. Photo by Rick Romancito, The Taos News


Location, location, location — three words that can mean success for almost any new enterprise.

Sandwiched between the National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., both number one tourist magnets, the architecturally stunning National Museum of the American Indian still remains uncertain whether that axiom will prove true after weathering its first year on the Mall.

The museum celebrated its first anniversary Sept. 21 with several special events, not the least of which were exhibitions of works by Allan Houser and George Morrison.

Education Manager Claire Cuddy, who was sent over to NMAI from its administrator, the Smithsonian Institution, to help get it going in its first year, was happy the long process to get the museum built has come this far.

“We’ve made great progress,” she said, “because our exhibits were installed and the doors opened.” But, she said, one thread remained loose. “We didn’t know who our audience would be.”

One of the staff’s biggest accomplishments this past year, she said, was finding the answer to that question. During its development, the NMAI in Washington, sister to the NMAI’s Heye Museum in New York City, found itself facing many expectations, some rather conflicting.

Many tribes saw it as a place to represent their own specific interests, issues and history, while those in academia saw it as a defining venture, a place to put to rest misconceptions and stereotypes, facts that educators could wrap their minds around. What they found were many versions of the truth, a history and cultural fabric entwined with unconfirmed oral recollection, and differing opinions on who and what to believe. Since the Smithsonian is the type of institution that takes its information very seriously, such gray areas weren’t likely to stay that way if it was going to incorporate the NMAI’s interests into its educational programs.

In 2004, when the museum opened to the sight of 25,000 Indians from more than 500 tribes from all over the Americas, its mission was emotionally set forth by Executive Director W. Richard West Jr. when he welcomed “home” the thousands Indians who filled the Mall. This was to be their museum, and it was considered about time that an unmistakable American Indian presence was felt in the nation’s capitol. On that level, it has been an accomplishment for which to be proud.

Going through the new Changing Exhibitions Gallery with Jemez Pueblo historian and author Joe Sando, Clear Light publisher Marcia Keegan, and others from New Mexico affiliated with the Sept. 21installation of a statue honoring the Pueblo Revolt leader Po’pay in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, it was clear that a piece of their heritage that speaks from the heart is in a place of great importance and dignity.

Among them was Estella Loretto, a Jemez Pueblo sculptor who was Houser’s last apprentice until his death in 1994. Loretto, who also lived for a while at Taos Pueblo, was clearly in awe of seeing her mentor’s work so beautifully displayed. The exhibition includes the Apache artist’s first work, “Comrade in Mourning” (1948), a monumental statue created to honor American Indians who died in World War II, and another of sublime radiance from 1988 titled “As Long as the Winds Shall Blow” (a larger version of which is installed at the Oklahoma State Capitol)

Morrison, of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa who died in 2000, is best known for his paintings, wood collages and sculptures rooted in Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism which drew inspiration from “his memories of the horizon over Lake Superior,” according to an NMAI fact sheet. But it was Houser’s sculptures and vivid paintings to which visitors seemed to respond the most.

“We know we’re not doing it right, but we don’t know what to do. Can you help us?” That’s what teachers say more times than not when they call the NMAI, according to Cuddy. “We have kids coming in thinking that all Native people live in teepees. And, of course, that there are no Native people today.” To combat such negative views, the NMAI has a policy of hiring Native staff. “That is my main mission,” Cuddy said. Not only that but only Native interpreters can lead groups through the museum.

Driving home this concept is an exhibit titled “Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities,” which shows at its entrance the viewer surrounded on either side by images of Native people walking along with them. In a sense, it states that Indians are still here, they’re proud, get used to it.

During a Wednesday (Sept. 21)reception at the Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR, Inc) and Bacon House, prior to the Pop’ay installation, San Juan Pueblo Governor Joe Garcia recalled the day last May when artist Cliff Fragua unveiled his sculpture made from a large block of Tennessee limestone. He said on that day he was stuck by the sense of a “fresh energy” flowing through the Indian nations. And when the sunlight fell upon the new sculpture of a man who symbolizes Native solidarity and sovereignty, he felt that Indians have become “a group the United States will have to reckon with.”

In 1680, the Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) medicine man Pop’ay organized a revolt against Spanish colonists that began at Taos Pueblo. Born of decades of oppression and violence rooted in ignorance and intolerance, Pop’ay and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico enacted what many have called “the first American revolution.” The sentiment in Washington this week, is that such solidarity is just what they need now more than ever.

So, what is the NMAI’s audience?

Cuddy and others at the museum believe that it is the people who walk into its doors — namely tourists and school children. But, even more, it is the international population that knows nothing about Indians, their cultures, diversity, lifeways and continuing presence. To many, Indians no longer exist. They have melted into mainstream America. Those that do exist live on impoverished reservations rife with alcoholism, unemployment and despair — or rich from government or corporate allotments, which have made them into white red men.