National Museum of the American Indian Opens New Exhibition about Local Native Tribes
The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian opened "Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake" Monday, Nov. 13. The new, permanent exhibition highlights the continued Native presence in what are now Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.
(Media-Newswire.com) - The compact exhibition, located on the second level, shows the Nanticoke, Piscataway and Powhatan tribes through historic and contemporary photographs, maps, ceremonial and everyday objects. Highlights include a Piscataway medicine bag; a Nanticoke painted gourd bottle with corn cob stopper; dried eel skin used to soothe arthritis; and a contemporary ceramic bowl showing the continuity of traditions by drawing on methods and designs used by Piscataway potters prior to European settlement.
Interactive touch screen monitors provide in-depth detail on historical events from the 1600s to the present, the impact of these events on Native life and the land throughout time, and immigration and migration issues. The use of indigenous names of places in the area connects visitors to the region and emphasize that this was and continues to be a Native place.
“This exhibition reveals the local Native communities struggle to maintain identity with the changing facets of urban development and shows how history and events have had an impact on both the people and the land in Washington, D.C., and the immediate surrounding area,” says founding museum director, W. Richard West Jr. ( Southern Cheyenne ). “We are proud to acknowledge the Native people of the D.C. region.”
Gabrielle Tayac ( Piscataway ) served as curator for “Return to a Native Place.” “You do not need to go far to find yourself in a Native place. Open your mind and think beyond the concrete and steel of this city. The Chesapeake Bay region has been a Native homeland for millennia. Our philosophies, histories and identities are powerfully bound to this land and to the waters that run through it.”
Established in 1989, through an Act of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge and understanding of the life, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The museum includes the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall, the George Gustav Heye Center, a permanent exhibition and education facility in New York City and the Cultural Resources Center, a research and collections facility in Suitland, Md. For more information about the museum, visit www.AmericanIndian.si.edu. # # #
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