American Indian Museum Opens With Pomp

[emad]

The Guardian

Tuesday September 21, 2004 4:46 PM
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

Snip

WASHINGTON (AP) - A colorful Native Nations procession heralded the opening Tuesday of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian, the newest addition to the historical treasure-trove dotting the National Mall.

A group of five White Mountain Apache Indians from White River, Ariz., drew a crowd with their exotic dress. Four had their chests painted black with white lettering while the fifth was painted white with black lettering. Pine needles were wrapped around their arms and waists, and wooden headgear reached two feet above their heads, which were covered in masks. As they danced, metal balls around their shoes added to the sounds of an accompanying drummer.

Nearby, Aztec Indians from San Francisco danced with headfeathers that reached as high as six feet above their heads.

Onlookers cheered as the procession made its way to the new museum near the U.S. Capitol, and the air was filled with the smell of burned sage and the sounds of drums, bells and music.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4504456,00.html

[lcooksey]

1. PFAWF is holding a voter registration drive there today

The People for the American Way Foundation was asking last week for volunteers. They'll be down on the Mall in DC all day today to register people to vote. I thought that was a pretty smart idea.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. The museum website says:

"The museum will be open continuously from 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 21, to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 22."

Am I misreading this? Is it open all night long?http://www.nmai.si.edu/

[BrotherBuzz]

3. Ummm, Pomp is dead

OK, a little off topic, but as a California historian I found Pomp's life to be a fascinating subject that gets little attention. I'll go back into my cubbyhole now. :)

HeÕs cute, heÕs sleepy, and heÕs in your pocket. HeÕs PompÑthe napping little baby on the new Sacagawea dollar coin.

In 1805, Pomp and his mother Sacagawea traveled across the western United States onthe historic Lewis and Clark Expedition. But that was only the beginning of his adventures. As an adult, he toured Europe with royalty, blazed new western trails as a mountain man, survived a bear attack while scouting for the U.S. Army, and became one of the first Americans to catch "gold fever" during the California Gold Rush.

http://pompstory.home.mindspring.com/

[classof56]

6. Thanks for the link to Pomp's story

Hope I'm remembering this correctly--he's now buried in a little town in southeast Oregon, not too far from where I live. Next time I'm over that way, I intend to visit his grave. Glad he and his mother got the tribute they deserved.

[BrotherBuzz]

8. Yes

He died in transit traveling to a Montana gold discovery in 1866. Say some kind words for me, too.

The part of his life that most interests me was when he was appointed Alclade of San Luis Rey.

<snip>
After guiding the battalion to California, Baptiste was released from
military duty. He was then hired by a fellow soldier to be the alcalde of San
Luis Rey. San Luis Rey was one of twenty-one missions that Spanish
priests founded in California. At these missions, Indians lived and worked,
while the priests tried to teach them about the Catholic religion.

In the position of alcalde, Baptiste was like the mayor of a small Indian
community. He was supposed to make sure the mission residents were
treated well and to gather information about their customs. Baptiste tried to
help the Indians, but after only eight months, he resigned from his post.
According to one army report, white people living near the mission forced
Baptiste to leave the job. Because he was half Indian, these whites thought
he was Òfavoring the Indians more than he should do.Ó Some even accused
him of trying to persuade the San Luis Rey Indians to rise up and fight the
priests in charge of the mission.

Although this charge was false, Baptiste was no doubt disturbed by some
whitesÕ mistreatment of the San Luis Rey Indians. In one instance, an
Indian who owed a white store owner $50 was told he would have to work
off the debt. The store owner, though, would only pay him 12 1/2 cents a
day. While working, the Indian would need to buy more supplies from the
store, driving him deeper in debt. Baptiste could see that at this low rate of
pay the Indian would have to slave for the store owner until the day he
died.

Although disappointed by his experiences at San Luis Rey, Baptiste now
was free to set off for northern California. From old friends in the Mormon
Battalion, he learned of an incredible discovery there. They had been
working on a crew that was building a mill on land owned by John Sutter.
In January 1848, while they labored, their supervisor, James Marshall,
spied a shiny yellow rock. The rock turned out to be a chunk of pure gold.
Marshall and Sutter tried to keep their discovery quiet so they would have
all the precious metal to themselves. But despite their efforts, word spread
and spread quickly.
<more>

http://pompstory.home.mindspring.com/Pages/chapter5.html

[maxsolomon]

4. i'm surprised that native americans would go for this

on the mall in the city that authorized genocide, treaty breaking, land grabs, & the extermination of the buffalo. you'd think they'd tell The Federal Government to take their culture embalming museum & its half-hearted amends-making motive & shove it.

i suppose i'm missing something & some enlightened DUer is about to jump down my throat about it.

its a nice building, though. no straight lines!

[Charlie Brown]

7. You could say the same thing about

The African-American museum, the Middle East art museum or the Holocaust Memorial (our State Dept. denied haven to thousands of Jews seeking refuge before and during the War). Like those exhibits, this one will inform the public of the enduring culture of native tribes. There are still many people who believe that a)Native Americans never had a culture until they were "civilized" or b)Believe that Europeans did nothing wrong by stealing their lands. This exhibit will help bring their stories into the public scene. Native Americans are "Americans" and desereve to be represented among our other ethnicities in the Capitol.

[maxsolomon]

9. that's what i mean by too little too late

we certainly have a lot to apologize for.

perhaps SOME children will be disabused of their parent's manifest destinized ignorance, but the whole enterprise of amends-making museums seems so... inadequate.

there is a middle east art museum? someday i should go to DC.

[Charlie Brown]

10. It's the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

http://www.asia.si.edu/visitor/history.htm

It houses art and antiquities from all of Asia. A significant portion of the gallery is dedicated to the Middle East.

[Bridget Burke]

13. Yes, you should go to DC.

I've heard it's a bit gloomy nowadays--more armed men, more barricades. But the museums of the Smithsonian are some of the high points.

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the U.S. Capitol building on the National Mall, the museum's location symbolizes a deeper understanding and reconciliation between America's first citizens and those who have come to make these shores their home.

The opening of this museum marks a unique cultural achievement as Native Americans from North, Central, and South America realize a long-awaited dream to share and honor their vibrant cultures with visitors from throughout the world.

www.nmai.si.edu/

[meow2u3]

11. Native Americans are taking back what the genocidal racists stole

Their lives, their dignity, their land--and this museum. As if to tell right-wing "palefaces" to shove it!

[solich2004]

5. Museum

I saw this building under construction last year (July 03) while I was visiting DC. I would love to get back out there and visit it. Really a sad moment in American history.

[Bridget Burke]

12. There's more to Native American culture than "a sad moment"

The oppression & killing took more than a "moment".

But the cultures have not been destroyed. Indigenous people of the hemisphere continue to live & create art; there is more to their lives than being victims. Members of various groups were involved with this project from the beginning & continue to be involved as scientists, administrators & teachers.

[seemslikeadream]

14. Native American EPA Employees Still Endure Harassment

Native American EPA Employees Still Endure Harassment During National Festival Celebrating Native Americans

9/21/2004 3:06:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Kim Alton of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, 202-662-8317; Web: http://www.lawyerscommittee.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Native American EPA employees endure a workplace that displays racially and ethnically demeaning, offensive, and historically inaccurate paintings. While a few blocks away, the National Museum of the American Indian opens as part of a long overdue celebration of the culture and traditions of the First Americans.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in conjunction with the firm of Latham & Watkins, LLP represent Native American EPA employees who object to the paintings on display in the Ariel Rios North Building in Washington, DC. The EPA paintings perpetuate stereotypes of Native Americans as savages, murderers and sexual predators.

The General Services Administration (GSA), the landlord of the building, has relied on the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in order to avoid removing the murals. "The NHPA does not require the display of paintings replete with negative stereotypical images of Native Americans," said Audrey Wiggins, Staff Attorney for the Employment Discrimination Project of the Lawyers' Committee. "It is hard to believe that the writers of the NHPA imagined the Act would protect work that is historically inaccurate and creates a racially demeaning and hostile work environment. For our clients, those paintings serve as a harsh reminder that they work for an employer that refuses to address the concerns of Native American employees."

"I'm sickened by the violent images in these paintings," said Bob Smith, one of the EPA employees represented by the Lawyers' Committee and Latham & Watkins. "The paintings are historically inaccurate, promote racial stereotyping, and their interpretations reek of prejudice and racism. I, along with other Indians, feel ashamed and embarrassed that EPA would allow this kind of hostile environment to exist under the protest of the EPA American Indian Advisory Council. This lack of respect for Indian People at EPA cannot be off set by the opening of the new Indian museum only a few blocks up the street."

more
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=36636

[seemslikeadream]

15. A Particular Kind of Truth

As the Culture Wars Rage, a Rare Victory Over Routes of Knowledge

By Philip Kennicott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 19, 2004; Page R02

In the summer of 1930, Margaret Mead spent a few months on an Indian reservation in Nebraska. Mead had cut her teeth as an anthropologist on far more "exotic" people, in the South Seas, and she was definitely not happy to be working in her own cultural back yard. The Native Americans were not making her job any easier.

"This is a very discouraging job, ethnologically speaking," she began a letter to a friend. She went on to paint a picture that is almost a parody of bad anthropology: The natives just aren't very interesting, or reliable, or trustworthy, and demand extortionate prices for selling their handicrafts, telling their stories or sharing their visions. And even then, there is "no way of checking whether they are telling the truth and no way of making the stuff coherent and integrated anyhow." She cross-examines, bullies and all but calls her "informants" liars, and then decides, "If I were going to be an Americanist I would stay in the library most of the time and only emerge to try to verify the most key points after a long search of the literature."

Mead's letter sketches in bold, crass strokes the worst of the mentality that the National Museum of the American Indian is fighting against.

Sitting in the shadow of the Capitol, on some of the most prestigious real estate in Washington, the new museum has emerged with ambitions far greater than simply putting a sunny face on the kind of anthropology represented by Mead, or becoming a Disney-style happy magnet for native peoples. It is a monument to Postmodernism -- to a way of thinking that emphasizes multiple voices and playful forms of truth over the lazy acceptance of received wisdom, authority and scientific "certainty." Its successful completion is evidence that American Indians have emerged as perhaps the only minority group in this country to win a skirmish in the culture wars.

..........

This delightful little game can stand for any number of basic Postmodern conundrums: that truth may lie in what isn't said, that the right to hide meaning may be more meaningful than anything that could be revealed and that, ultimately, the only real truth in the world is the lack of a single truth. This basic mind dance -- a corrective ritual to old, stultifying notions of truth -- has been driven out of our society, for the most part, by a conservative intellectual entrenchment. But in the National Museum of the American Indian, it is being reanimated, and grafted onto the remnants of a diverse and ancient worldview. On the run most everywhere else, Postmodernism has a victory arch on the Mall.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28890-2004Sep17.html