17

Indian Country on Washingtons MallThe

National Museum of the American Indian:
A Review Essay
Janet Catherine Berlo and Aldona Jonaitis

he National Museum of the American Indian

(NMAI) opened on September 21, 2004. On
that brilliant and warm Washington day,
about 25,000 Native people from Alaska, Hawaii,
Chile and many places in between, marched in full
regalia on the Mall. They celebrated the endurance
of their diverse cultures and the opening of the longawaited national museum dedicated to, and for the
most part, curated and directed by, Native peoples
themselves. That same day, both The New York Times
and The Washington Post ran reviews that were overwhelmingly negative, conveying a sense of disappointment, and even outrage. The contrast between
the joy clearly manifested by the hemispheres First
Nations and the sometimes vituperative reactions to
their museum by two of the most important newspapers in the country could not have been more
striking.
The New York Times decried the studious
avoidance of scholarship, behind the exhibits, the
emphasis on a warm earthy mysticism with comforting homilies behind every faade, and pronounced it a self-celebratory romance (Rothstein
2004). The Washington Post pronounced its exhibits
disheartening, lacking the glue of thought, a
blur (Richard 2004a). One of the first rules of writing a book review is to address the book that was
written, and not the book one thinks the author
should have written. As one of us (Berlo), who had
not attended the opening, commented after spending just two hours in NMAI, this is not the museum
that I read about in the newspapers.1 We wondered
why the reviewers seemed unwilling actually to
evaluate the museum that was presented to them,

choosing instead to bemoan that the museum they

wanted to attend was not in evidence. In this essay,
we shall review the museums design and opening
exhibits, as well as the solipsistic reviews it received
in the national press.

The Museum Building

The museum itself is architecturally striking.
(Figure 1) The original design was by the Canadian
architect Douglas Cardinal (of Blackfoot, Metis and
German heritage). It shares many features with his
design for Canadas Museum of Civilization in Hull,
Quebec, which opened in 1989. Cardinal was apparently fired from the NMAI project in 1998; the best
way to express the difficult gestation of the buildings design is simply to quote from the museums
own press release, for surely this statement was as
carefully negotiated as the opening credits of a
Hollywood movie:
The museums conceptual designers are
Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot)
with GBQC Architects of Philadelphia and
architect Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Chocktaw);
Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi) and Donna House
(Navajo/Oneida) also served as design consultants. Following the conceptual design work, the
project was further developed by the architectural firm of Jones and Jones of Seattle and
SmithGroup of Washington, D.C. in association
with Lou Weller (Caddo) and the Native American
Design Collaborative; Polshek Partnership
Architects of New York City; and EDAW Inc.,
landscape architects in Alexandria, Virginia.2
Whew!

Museum Anthropology Vol. 28, Issue 2, pp. 1730, ISSN 0892-8339, online ISSN 1548-1379. Copyright 2005 American
Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article
content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

1. East Faade. East Facade of the National Museum of

the American Indian. Photo by Robert C. Lautman.

The structure is curvilinear, its entrance facing

east (toward the capitol building). The pressed glass
doors are etched with petroglyph-like sun symbols.
The stone block construction (made of Kasota limestone from Minnesota) will remind some visitors of
the fine sandstone masonry of Ancestral Puebloan
architecture at Chaco Canyon. It also recalls the
great canyons and mesas shaped naturally by wind
and rain in the American west. On the east side,
the wetlands that originally graced this site have
been invoked by a 6,000 square foot marshy area
planted with yellow pond-lily, silky willow and wild
rice. On the north side, facing the mall, a long curving water feature hugs the building. On a windy
day, the water ripples and eddies like a liquid version of the rippling limestone above. And nestled
against the warm south faade are traditional
Native cropscorn, beans, squash and other food
and medicinal plants from the Americas.

The organic curves of the museum are a visual

delight, and a welcome interruption of the resolutely
Euclidean geometry of most of the buildings on the
Mall. Yet the undulating walls work surprisingly
well with the sternly modernist East Wing of the
National Gallery across the Mall and the adjacent
National Air and Space Museum.
From the exterior, what impresses the most is
the view as one walks from the LEnfant Plaza metro
station: the NMAI building begins to take form, and
as it does, it gradually reveals the U.S. Capitol building on the hill beyond. (Figure 2). The juxtaposition
of these two buildings calls to mind the vexed and
often cruel relationship between the federal government and Native American tribes. The buildings
appear to be in conversation about their past relationships and their present one. The power and elegance of the National Museum of the American
Indian hints at a more egalitarian futurea meeting of equals.
As one enters the museum, on the left is a
Welcome Desk and a 20-foot-long screen above
it upon which are projected scores of words meaning welcome in the indigenous languages of the
Americas. But on a day with large crowds queuing for the bag search and the walk through the
metal detectors (a feature of all Smithsonian
museums now), one simply does not notice the
Welcome Wall.3
To enter the vast, open lobby, the visitor must
walk around a curving woven copper fence that partially encloses and demarcates a wooden-floored
dance circle. (Figure 3) The screen, which at its greatest height is over six feet tall, recalls indigenous bark
and wood splint architecture and basketry. The
large-scale interlacing of sheets of copper (evocative
of interlaced wooden slats) is sometimes interrupted
by a delicate detail of spun copper and brass wire
(evocative of twined basketry techniques). We
searched in vain for a placard offering the artists
name. There was none. It was a collaborative effort
of the design team, though museum director Rick
West credits Hopi weaver Ramona Sakiestewa for
artistic leadership here.4 It is one of the most elegant
aspects of the museums interior and, like many
other features of the museum, a poetic merging of
the contemporary with the traditional.
One can imagine the circular wooden-floored
dance circle, or Potomac as it is called, resounding
with drums, and the circular movement of Native

19

2. West Faade. West Facade of the National Museum of the American Indian. Photo by Robert C. Lautman.

dancers. In early November 2004, this gathering

place was the site for hands-on displays of a Native
Hawaiian canoe and a Central Arctic kayak. Named
with an Algonquian/Powhatan word for where the
goods are brought in, this space is conceptualized
as the very heart of the museum building, the sun
of its universe (Volkert, et al., 2004:34). In the
center of the wooden dance floor is inset a small disk
of red pipestone cut in an abstract fire design.
Around the perimeter are low curved walls made of
polished granite that serve as seating areas. This
space was buzzing with activity the Sunday we were
there. Nonetheless, it was a calm space, providing a
point for restful contemplation.
The large open atrium (more than 100 feet in
diameter and soaring more than 120 feet to the top
of the dome) alludes to other structuresthe
rotunda of the capitol building, the soaring height
of a cathedral, the impressive lobby spaces of many
other contemporary museums. The interior is an
interplay of vast open spaces and intimate exhibition rooms. One can stand next to railings on levels
two, three and four to enjoy the spatial experience
and also observe performances and demonstrations
on the lobby floor. This recalls Frank Lloyd Wrights
Guggenheim Museum, where the visitor spirals
around, ever able to view the lobby below.

The Exhibitions
The best way to experience the museum is from
the top floor down. One emerges from the elevators
into a spacious hallway. At some hours, museum
staff members are giving small hands-on demonstrations of techniques such as quillwork. These
activities take place near wall cases filled with
objects. These small surveys of the museums vast
holdings are called Windows on the Collection.
Appearing on every floor in the halls that overlook
the rotunda, these display cases serve as a kind of
visible storage, presenting a panoply of objects and
materials. Their arrangements are artistic, and
their contents perhaps intentionally designed to jar
the visitor. For example, the largest case on the
fourth floor displays animal imagery of all sorts.
Older sculptures of birds, mammals and sea creatures appear alongside witty contemporary works
such as Larry Becks version of a Yupik mask made
of rubber tire treads and metal tools, and Jim
Schopperts Walrus Loves Baby Clams mask.
Recently-made ivory carvings challenge the
common distinction between so-called authentic
fine art and commodity (a distinction which may
be pass in the academic world, but which still
holds strong among much of the general public).
These objects are not themselves labeled, but before

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

3. Lobby space. Potomac, National Museum of the American Indian. Photo by R.A. Whiteside, National Museum of the
American Indian.

each case is a touch screen with small images which,

when touched, provided access to detailed images of
smaller pieces, as well as brief labels. It would be
valuable for the museum to include more interpretive information on the touch screens for those seeking in-depth understanding of the pieces.5
In another case, an array of peace medals is
accompanied by informative text about how their
meaning changed with settlement. Medals appear
in cases underneath a collage of medal-wearing
Indians from several centuries. Even the museums
director is pictured. As in all the text in the museum,
the author is identified. We applaud this strategy of
identifying individual curatorial voices. It is an
important step in dispelling the ponderously
authoritative yet anonymous voice of history that
still presides in most museums.

After viewing the Windows on the Collections

cases, the visitor is advised to watch a short film
introducing contemporary Native life in the Lelawi
Theater, an intimate circular space with banks of
platform seating. With its central fire pit and domed
ceiling, this space (seating 125) recalls many indigenous collective spaces, from the kivas of the Pueblo
Southwest to the qasgiq of the CentralYupik. This
multi-media experience prefigures and encapsulates many aspects of the museum as a whole: the
warm welcome by a Native host, the intimacy of the
space, and most especially the sophisticated use of
technology to convey traditional cultural mores.
Above the central fire pit are video screens facing
the four directions. Each is covered with a woven
fabric onto which the video is projected. Imagery
on the main screens is augmented by imagery

21

projected onto the sky dome. This is done very

effectively-whether it is a panorama of the flags of
many Indian nations or the shadowy images of
Native dancers.
The video opens with a prayer, as do most events
where Native people convene. It seamlessly and
impressionistically moves through short clips of contemporary Native cultural experience on the
Northwest Coast, in the Pueblos, among the Nahua
of Central Mexico and the Aymara of Bolivia, as well
as the Lakota, Inupiat and Muscogee. Especially
noteworthy are the scenes of Inupiat whaling in
Barrow, Alaska: a whaling team motoring out onto
the icy ocean, a surfacing bowhead whale, the community pulling the huge animal to shore, the
butchering of its muktuk (blubber). Although the
film does not show the actual kill, the butchering
scene is quite bloody. We applaud the museums
courage in highlighting this subsistence activity, one
that many people are squeamish about and that
raises the hackles of animal rights groups. Yet those
who reflexively support animal rights are sometimes unmindful of basic human needs in a harsh
subsistence economy.
A few small cases of objects are scattered
throughout the seating areas and recessed into the
walls of the Lelawi Theater. While waiting for the film
to begin, one can examine Mexican stone masks, a
Plains beaded vest, catlinite pipes, and other objects.
Each case lights up at the appropriate time in the
video. For example, when Arctic people are hunting
seals for a skin boat in the video, the small case
containing a miniature skin boat is illuminated.
The film ends with the familiar rousing refrain
This Is Indian Country, from Stomp Dance
(Unity),6 while a cavalcade of images of contemporary Native people from all walks of lifeathletes,
scientists, dancers, artistsare projected. We found
this film and its multi-media environment both
effective as well as affecting. Batwin and Robin
Productions deserves a great deal of credit for this
remarkable installation.7
The exit from the theater leads to Our
Universes, one of two major long-term displays
on this floor. Emil Her Many Horses (Oglala)
curated this exhibit with a team of community
curators. From the night sky of the Lelawi
Theaters dome, one moves into a central area
where the domed ceiling is painted dark blue
another night sky with a panoply of stars. The cen-

tral introductory area presents Native stories of

creation and cosmology, as well as art objects with
cosmological imagery. This is expanded by eight
pods or small community-curated galleries which
present the distinctive artifacts and cosmological
ideas of eight Native groups: Santa Clara Pueblo,
Anishinaabe, Lakota, Quechua (Peru), Hupa,
Qeqchi Maya (Guatemala), Mapuche (Chile), and
Yupik. These spaces are too small for the vast
crowds that were at the museum on the Sunday we
visited; their aims were easier to understand on a
subsequent visit with fewer patrons in attendance.
These sections vary considerably in their substance
and information, which is not surprising, considering each one was curated by a community group.
On entering the pod, photographs and biographies
of community curators contribute to the personal
experience, and to the understanding that information does not exist in a vacuum, but is presented
by particular people with particular points of view,
be they museum curators or community members.
As in the Windows on the Collections, good use is
made of touch screens that offer further information on artifacts.
The other gallery on the top floor, Our Peoples:
Giving Voice to Our Histories (Figure 4) is in some
ways the most successful exhibit. It combines artistic presentation of objects that tell a compelling
story along with the more intimate first-person
accounts, again of eight chosen communities. The
central open space is dedicated to telling a Native
version of contact. It was curated by Paul Chaat
Smith (Comanche writer and critic), Ann McMullen
(NMAI staff member), and Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora
artist and scholar). As Smith so cogently wrote in a
recent lecture on the museum:
Awarding Indians the last open space on the
National Mall was a profound act that showed
the American government and its people wanted
Indians to be part of a national conversation, to
finally talk, seriously, and at the highest levels,
about things we had never really talked about
before. Lets be clear: you dont get a new museum
right next to the Capitol itself for making excellent jewelry, or for having stories and songs, or
religious beliefs you wish to share with the world.
You get the last open space on the National Mall
because the countrys decided, in the mysterious
ways nations decide such matters, that its time
at last to speak about the hard things, the painful
things, the unspeakable things.8

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

4. View of the guns and bibles that appear in the Our Peoples: Giving Voice to Our Histories exhibition at the
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Photo by Katherine Fogden, NMAI.

This is the exhibit that focuses principally on

the painful things, and it does so with considerable
visual and textual eloquence. Amid seventeen images
of 19th century Indian portraits by Catlinthe Plains
Cree playwright Floyd Favel is himself a talking
head within a frame narrating a video entitled
Making History. This provides an effective and
startling merging of past and present, old media and
new. He reminds us all histories have a history
themselves, and one is incomplete without the
other. This exhibit introduces Native counter-narratives to the Euro-centric versions of history that
we have all been taught. It offers a powerful visual
experience, more like an artists installation than a
typical didactic display. And indeed, artist Jolene
Rickard was responsible for the concept behind its
visual eloquence. A long sinuous plexiglass wall
curves its way through the gallery. The viewer walks
along it, confronted by hundreds of objects; the experience is like being hit by a tidal wave of objects
embodying the changes wrought by contact.

The time before Columbus is represented by a

large installation of ceramic and stone figures that
offer the myriad human faces of the pre-contact
world. The late pre-historic and initial contact
period is represented by scores and scores of indigenous gold objects. Both were drawn from the Heye
Foundations vast holdings of nearly a million
objects. To us, this installation seems a better use of
them than yet another display of Costa Rican Gold
or Tlatilco Figurines ordered by the tired standards of 19th century anthropological classification
(region, tribe, artifact type, etc.). Idea and artistry
are the motivating factors here, not Linnaean classificatory schemes that Indian people have found
so fossilizing.
The overwhelming military might of the conquerors is suggested by swords and daggers, which
begin to intersperse with the gold, followed by a cavalcade of more than 100 examples of firearms from
early arquebusses to Colt revolvers, Remington
rifles, and even semi-automatic weapons like those

23

used against native peoples of El Salvador and

Guatemala in recent decades. A large panel entitled
Invasion offers compelling quotes from North and
South America about the consequences of the diseases that decimated the indigenous peoples. Gods
Work: Churches as Instruments of Dispossession
and Resilience presents a visually stunning wall
of biblesover one hundred of them in English,
French, German, and a host of indigenous languages. Hand-bound and hand-tooled bibles vie with
bibles with quilled, beaded, and feathered covers,
vivid examples of the incorporation of these texts
into Native worldviews. Having just recovered from
the weight of all those swords and firearms, the visitor is assaulted by the weapons of a spiritual and
ideological invasion whose consequences were perhaps even graver than the military invasion. To us,
this was the eloquent, elegant and elegiac core of
the museum experience, and we wont soon forget
its impact.
Jolene Rickards aim was to provide an experiential engagement with history through the
museums substantial collections. The objects are
more powerful than anything we can say, she
observed, in answer to our questions about the genesis of this installation.9
I referenced Richard Serras curvilinear torqued
sculptures as having the appropriate sensibility. [The wall] is reminiscent of land formations,
grand in scale, and would create a modestly
destabilizing experience for the visitor. I feel
that the meta-narrative of how America imagines
Natives is so entrenched that the mere presentation of any object or thought needed to be carefully articulated through a de-romanticized and
very contemporary lens.
Rickard worked closely with designers Lynn Emi
Kawaratani and Verena Pierik to achieve her aims,
which included, in her words, boldly working with
the collections as if they were the colors on an
artists palette. Moreover, she related,
It wasnt about the history of each one of these
objects individually, rather it is about the
overall history told by their assemblage. This
installation created for me an indigenous context. We can not go in and tease out their multiple histories, but wasnt the objective the
presentation of this material from a Native
perspective? I tried to reframe the content to
make that point.

We find it significant that so many of North

Americas most distinguished Native artists were
crucial to the shaping of this museum as a visual
experience, a topic we shall return to in the final
section of this essay.
On a small video screen near the entrance to
this exhibit, a mesmerizing Caribbean beach with
lapping waves provides the backdrop for short
statements on how Native American items have
long functioned within a global system. In Corn
changes the world, the well-known origin of maize
in the western hemisphere is supplemented with
an interesting ideathat corn fed Africans, thus
increasing population to feed the slave trade.
Tobacco changes the world points out that this
plant made many Europeans wealthy. Indian products had, and continue to have, world-wide influence on events completely separate from their
original meaning and usage.
Further encouragement for viewers to consider
history not as a single definitive immutable work,
but as a collection of subjective tellings (Volkert, et
al., 2004:50) is found in the eight community galleries in Our Peoples. They include the Seminole
of Florida, the Tapirap of Brazil, the Kiowa of
Oklahoma, the Tohono Oodham of Arizona, the
Eastern Band of the Cherokee of North Carolina,
the Nahua of central Mexico, the Kaapor of Brazil
and the Huichol of west Mexico (here called the
Wixarika).
Another intellectually compelling, yet complex
gallery is Our Lives: Contemporary Life and
Identities, which takes up half of the third floor. The
gallery focuses on how Native people not only live in
a land where they are minorities, but also function in
a globalized world. In some ways this gallerys design
blends that of the two upstairs exhibits. The central
area of Our Lives, curated by Jolene Rickard and
Gabrielle Tayac, is devoted to the complexities of
Native identities and how they can be maintained
today. It asks the ever-compelling questionwho is
Native? Ways of measuring Indiannessblood
quantum, appearance, federal recognition, and documentationchallenge the visitor. The wall text
asks, What is Native?, then responds, Its not just
your bloodbut in your head, heart, thoughts. Hard
Choices also brings the visitors attention to the
kinds of internal tribal disputes that occur when
income sources conflict with traditional values, such
as disagreements on the value of casinos to Native

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

communities. This, more than any other exhibit,

would benefit from a clear introductory label that succinctly states what this interesting gallery is all
about, for one needs to spend considerable time figuring out the connecting threads of these various
exhibits. The typical museum visitor, unaware of
many of the issues this gallery raises, would find an
orientation of considerable value.
Surrounding this central core are smaller displays on eight tribes and Native communities. This
section challenges the visitors preconceptions about
Indians by presenting a variety of groups, some
well-known such as the Inuit and Iroquois, some less
well known, at least in the U.S.. One section on the
Metis of Canada introduces this hybrid yet staterecognized group, another the Carib Kalinagoa
tiny group who survived in the Caribbean, and an
all tribes nation: Chicagos thousands of urban
Indians. This gallery successfully carries out one of
the NMAIs goalsto convey the variety of Native
American peoples, from those living a subsistence
lifestyle to urban dwellers. The reality and diversity
of contemporary Indian life is vibrantly transmitted
in these displays, community-curated under the
guidance of Cynthia Chavez and Ann McMullen.
They complement similar community exhibits in
Our Peoples and Our Universes.
Our Lives contains several nice design
touches. A large tank-like vehicle sits in the middle
of the Metis exhibit. It probably surprises most
visitors to encounter this artifact, a bombardier
used for ice fishing, in an Indian museum. On the
introductory panel to the Igloolik Eskimos is an
arrangement of stacked glass blocks that allude to
the inuksuk, a pile of stones in abstract human
shape that marks trails, or direction, or the site of
a food cache. In the Kanawake section are some real
steel girders of the type erected by the famed
Mohawk high steel ironworkers.
Before the museum opened, we wondered how
the Heye Museums collections of Latin American
material would be incorporated into what seemed
like it would be a Native North American museum.
In fact, the material has been seamlessly incorporated into all exhibits, from Our Universes, Our
Peoples, and Our Lives community galleries, to
the elegant curving wall of gold and figurines mentioned above. Yet the understandable lack of expertise of the curatorial team in all aspects of the
thousands of indigenous cultures of the Americas

sometimes comes to the fore: One example shall suffice: The Qeqchi (more often known in the literature as Kekchi) Maya gallery sadly misses the
chance to make some excellent links between
ancient and modern Maya histories and cosmologies. Elsewhere, a wall labels assertion of the loss
of 200,000 Maya and the destruction of 800 villages
during Guatemalas statesponsored war of terror
against Maya communities in the 1980s seems
overstated. (The United Nations fact-finding commission in 1999 said 448 villages were substantially
destroyed. See www.soaw.org.)
The fourth floor has rooms that can be configured to make gallery spaces, meeting rooms, or
classrooms of different sizes. Two of these were used
to house a traveling exhibit, The Jewelry of Ben
Nighthorse, organized by the Center of
Southwestern Studies at Fort Lewis College in
Durango, Colorado. Neither of us was aware that
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the U. S. Senator from
Colorado is an award-winning jewelry designer. His
work was most impressive. Campbell (a Northern
Cheyenne, whose work is marketed under the
name Ben Nighthorse) initiated and helped pass
legislation to establish NMAI as part of the
Smithsonian. Many people know him as an independent-minded advocate for Indian rights; it was
a pleasure to see his fluency and his stature in this
artistic medium.10
On the third floor, an expansive exhibition space
was given over to Native Modernism, a first-rate
art historical examination of the work of George
Morrison (Chippewa, 1919-2000) and Allan Houser
(Apache, 19141994), two of the most important
Native artists of the mid- to late 20th century
(Figure 5). In its elegant design and spacious layout,
this gallery was a welcomed visual relief from the
permanent installations, all of which were densely
packed with texts and objects. Curated by Truman
Lowe (Ho-chunk, himself a well-known artist who
serves as Curator of Contemporary Art at NMAI),
the exhibit carefully chronicles the history of the
work of these two key figures in 20th century Native
art. It amply surveys Morrisons abstract expressionist paintings of the 1950s and 60s, and his
meticulous wood collages of the 1970s and 80s, as
well as Housers naturalistic drawings of nudes and
other Indian subjects and his monumental sculptural works that distill those naturalistic figures
into semi-abstract forms.

25

5. View of Native Modernism, photograph courtesy of NMAI.

In terms of both its style and substance, this

exhibit could have been at home in any art museum
in the country. We enjoyed watching the encounters
that many museum-goers had with this exhibit, for
some who might eagerly visit an Indian Museum
might not necessarily venture into a modern art
museum and seek out large marble nudes or
abstract assemblages. This perhaps unexpected
encounter with classically modern art added to the
pedagogical aims of the museum, with its implicit
endorsement that this, too is Indian experience:
abstract art, Fulbright and Guggenheim grants, a
professorship at Rhode Island School of Design, or
the awarding of the National Medal of Arts. The
accompanying catalogue, edited by Lowe, and including essays by N. Scott Momaday, Gail Tremblay, and
Gerald Vizenor, is a beautifully produced volume. It
takes its place with other recent and forthcoming
works that consider the variety of indigenous modernisms, most of them still unrecognized by canonical modernism (Lowe 2004).11

The spaces currently devoted to the Ben

Nighthorse and Native Modernism exhibits presumably will be used for other changing exhibits in
the future. If subsequent exhibits are as interesting and successful as these two, we have a great deal
to look forward to.
NMAI offers the total museum experience,
with a caf and two gift shops. The Mitsitam Caf is
an experience in its own rightwe can think of no
other museum in which the cuisine supports the
didactic program of the museum! Different stations
provide Native-themed food from different regions.
Examples include cedar planked salmon from the
Northwest coast, quinoa salad and peanut soup
from South America, buffalo chili from the Great
Plains, pork pibil and chicken mole from Mexico,
maple roasted turkey and wild rice salad from the
Northern Woodlands. (For the resolutely unadventuresome or the infantile, there are also french fries
and chicken tenders.) Near the cashiers there were
wonderful, and for the most part, healthful snacks:

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

fruit salad, dried cranberries and apples, trail mix,

fresh fruit, and baked goods. The food we had was
excellent, and the other dishes we saw looked tasty.
On both a Sunday and a Monday in November, the
caf was full. It will surely become one of the most
popular places to dine in the Mall area.
All museums today depend on their gift shops
for income, and NMAI is no exceptiontwo gift
shops offer different kinds of goods. (Indeed, the
Grand Opening Press Release boasted that the
museum set a Smithsonian record with more than
$1 Million in sales at the two museum stores during
the first week.).12 On the second floor, the Roanoke
Store sells the teeshirts, carrying bags, cards, toys,
and books that most museum stores carry. An interesting touch is the Kwakwakawakw potlatch figure
standing in the corner, next to shelves with woolen
blankets. Here, store morphs into museum exhibit,
but not inappropriately. Photographs of late 19th and
early twentieth century potlatches illustrate the
piles of woolen trade blankets chiefs distributed to
their guests; here, reminiscent of such photos, the
kind of figural sculpture often presented in a potlatch context stands next to piles of woolen blankets
ready to be distributed to the buying public. On the
ground floor, the Chesapeake is an expensive fine
arts gallery featuring original artworks. These
range from Yupik baskets and Dorothy Grantdesigned clothing in Northwest Coast style to fine
Pueblo pottery and jewelry. The hand-adzed cedar
walls add to the elegance and beauty of the shop.
On the days that we visited, the museum was a
joyful place of intercultural encounter. We watched
tourists of all ages and ethnicities avidly taking in
every visual, aural, spatial, and culinary message
the museum offered. We heard people speaking various European, Asian, and African languages to each
other and to their children as they examined everything on display. We also saw many more Native
American faces than one usually sees in one place
in the nations capital. Clearly people are coming
from everywhere to see and hear what Native
Americans have to say and show about their cultures. Almost everyone we eavesdropped on seemed
absorbed and delighted by their experience.

The Reviews
This brings us back to the oddly dissonant comments of the two major reviews. It would appear

that both the New York and Washington D.C. journalists not only have strong opinions about what the
NMAI should be, but also retain relatively simplistic and atavistic attitudes towards Native culture
and history and their public presentation. Rothstein
of The New York Times objects to what he sees as
inadequate research, especially, in his words, since
American Indians largely had no written languages,
and since so much trauma had decimated the tribes,
the need for scholarship and analysis of secondary
sources is all the more critical. True as such a seemingly-objective statement may be, it adheres to the
prejudice, seen most clearly in some Canadian land
claims court decisions, that oral history is fictitious.
He goes on to almost mockingly describe the ten
most crucial moments in Tohono Oodham history,
which include the birds teaching humans to call for
rain, and a 2000 desert walk for health. Rothstein
seems unaware that in their present circumstances,
a groups mythic beginnings are often just as important as addressing the serious health problems that
plague so many contemporary Native communities.
In the Washington Post, Paul Richard objects to
the fact that the museum has more places to shop,
gather, and eat, than it has for art. First of all, this
is simply not true. Secondly, this is, as all the
museum publicity makes clear, not an art museum,
although it contains and displays art. Instead of criticizing these choices made by the museum, one can
celebrate its references to living cultures which
prize their Native foods, cherish time spent in community, and appreciate the opportunity to make an
income by selling their own creations. Richard also
dismisses the authenticity of pots made for gift shop
sale, and the value of trading-post bracelets and
beaded purses, thus demonstrating his own ignorance of the significance that so-called tourist art
and inter-cultural commerce has long had for
American Indians. Richard clings to an outmoded
paradigm of the authentic and the unsullied
a world in which commerce plays no part.
Oddly, this same reviewer, in a separate article,
singled out the Native Modernism exhibit as the
only one worthy of praise. He calls it the best-looking and the least amorphous exhibit in the entire
museum because, as he explains, it shows you
beauty steadily evolving and skill expanding, and
history in detail, which most of the others dont
(Richard 2004b). Paul Richard seems not to appreciate that the curatorial staff has deliberately

27

chosen to offer visitors multiple aesthetic, historical, and cultural experiences. He authoritatively
proclaims,
Art is seldom comfortable in identity museums
this one for Jews, that one for women, this one
for Indians. All such institutions are inherently
restrictive, and by confining they mislead. Get
into its mood and this shows spacious
Morrisons ought to take your thoughts not just
to Lake Superior, but also to Cape Cod and
Antibes, as Allan Housers heroes and madonnas
should send your mind to Florence, not just to
Santa Fe.
What he conveniently forgets is that identity museums were constituted, of necessity, because of the
silences and omissions in so-called mainstream art
museums which, until the last two decades, showed
scant interest in the arts of women and minorities,
and in non-canonical forms. But more importantly,
this reviewer misses the point: Yes, Indian art may
face Europe as much as it faces the Great Lakes or
the deserts of New Mexico. That it sends your mind
to Florence does not nullify its Native identity, only
complicates and enriches that Native identity in the
eyes of those viewers who had never before been presented with the cosmopolitanism of Indian cultural
expression and experience.
By refusing to present its multi-valenced stories in the expected fashion, NMAI has been subject
to reductive criticism in the nations newspapers of
record. Many of these criticisms are, as we have
pointed out, unfair. Perhaps the museum made a tactical error in its pre-opening publicity; it positioned
itself as the conveyor of indigenous knowledge that
stood in opposition to anthropological knowledge. In
fact, much perfectly legitimate research informed
many of the exhibits, so this supposed opposition is
not, in fact, entirely accurate. It did however raise
the hackles of those ready to challenge the exhibits
as intellectually impoverished, perhaps without
pausing to reflect that somewhat different intellectual paradigms were operative here.

The Mall as Indian Country: Native Autonomy

and Interpretive Strategies
In his introduction to Creations Journey, the first
volume to come out of NMAIs Heye Center in lower
Manhattan, Seneca scholar and museum professional Tom Hill wrote about his own journey as one

who yearned to penetrate the haze of past museum

practices and public attitudes that had accumulated
around the objects over time, and to ask new questions about them. He pondered the ways in which
Native curators might construct new cultural paradigms for the 21st century (Hill 1994: 14, 19).
If there is anything we have learned from the
last twenty years worth of literature on museum
representation, it is that dissatisfaction with the old
paradigms has been pandemic among forwardthinking art historians, anthropologists, and
museum professionals, as well as Native peoples
and others who have felt disenfranchised by the old
paradigms. 13 Yet as Bruce Ferguson wrote in a
now-classic essay, Exhibition Rhetorics,
The surprise, of course, given the multiplicity
of forms of art, is how few genres of exhibitions
there actually are and how few are animated
differently from one another. The labyrinth of
possible utterances from multiple voices and
complex cultures seems to remain unsearched
and unresearched. Repetition of genres and figures remain systematically patterned and structurally repetitious. But if other authentic classes,
races, and formerly marginalized voices are
committedly introduced, the exhibition form
may produce unexpected flourishes, new subgenres, new sites of speech. New dimensions of
the signifying field may expand the play of
exhibitions, and thus expand the possibility of
serious achievements (1996:184).
Oddly, the general public, rather than the journalists who chronicle museum exhibitions, seems open
to the new utterances and new sites of speech that
have arisen on the Mall in Washington. And new
utterances they are. This IS Indian country, as the
processional song in the Lelawi Theatre proclaims.
As Director Rick West has explained on numerous
occasions, this is the museum different.
It is useful to state what this museum is NOT.
It does not present a linear history of Native
Americans. It does not provide in-depth anthropological displays about individual cultures, or even
broad culture areas. It does not cover all the tribes
of North and South America. It is not, as we have
stated before, an art museum. It deliberately denies
the grand narrative of Euro-American historical
representation. In its place, the museum offers eloquent fragments of various realities, leaving to the
history and anthropology museums the tasks of

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

more conventional interpretations of Indian culture.

It also responds to the criticisms of museum representations of Native peoples. Instead of the objective, anonymous third-person voice of the expert,
individuals tell their stories, some more eloquently
than others. We met a young university student who
was writing a paper on the museum for her anthropology class; when asked what she thought, she
described how other museums objectify their artifacts,
whereas here, she really felt people were talking to
her about themselves. She found this gratifying
and more appealing than the more familiar museological mode.
In a now-classic essay written for Museum
Anthropology more than a decade ago, Chiricahua
Apache anthropologist Nancy Mithlo astutely asked
Why are we always celebrating the survival of
Native American culture, instead of truly understanding just how much we have lost and how
we have lost it? It is this type of representation
I am interested in and as far as I know, no museums are talking about my people truthfully in
this manner. Perhaps museums are not the
right vehicle for this type of work. Perhaps it is
up to our intellectuals, writers, and artists to tell
these stories (1995: 57).
We find these words deeply prophetic, for indeed
it is the team of Native writers such as Paul Chaat
Smith and artists who have been able to do this at
NMAI. It is noteworthy that so many Native artists
of considerable stature were deeply involved in the
development of these exhibits, among them Gerald
McMaster, Jolene Rickard, Ramona Sakiestewa, and
Truman Lowe. Their artistry is evident throughout
the museum, from the curving wall of figurines, gold,
guns and bibles, to the woven copper fence in the
lobby, to the grace of the Native Modernism installation. This visual eloquence is sometimes muffled
by the cacophony of the accompanying texts, but
this is a problem that will be worked out as the
museum refines and modifies its exhibits over the
next several years.
As scholars deeply invested in Native American
art histories, we hope to see more exhibits of the
quality of Native Modernism in order to continue the balance between a more general public
orientation of the long-term galleries, and a more
in-depth or scholarly look at one topic. We hope
to see more use of their astonishing and vast

collections, as exemplified in Beauty, Honor, and

Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts, an
exhibit at the New York NMAI in 2001.14 We
assume that the staff is committed to continue
working with communities to expand and rotate
the number of groups represented in the smallscale exhibits. This not only increases the publics
understanding of the individuality of different
indigenous groups, but also contributes to the
hands-on training in museology of community members who can then work in existent or new local
cultural centers. It is also important to remember
that NMAI consists of four componentsThe Heye
Center in New York City, the Suitland research
facility in suburban Maryland, the Museum on the
mall, and the outreach to tribal museums throughout the Americas. Joint projects between the
National Museum and local ones will help build a
Native museological practice that has relevance
to local groups as well as intellectual and artistic
sophistication.
In most senses, those inhabiting a multi-million
dollar museum built on the last space on the Mall
in Washington can no longer be considered marginalized. They have arrived at the center. Yet we
believe our colleagues at NMAI have proudly
embraced a particular sort of marginality, one articulated by the museum different, by Indian
Country. The African-American cultural critic bell
hooks has identified the power inherent in a marginality that is deliberately chosen, that is about
articulation rather than exclusion:
I make a definite distinction between that marginality which is imposed by oppressive structures and that marginality one chooses as a site
of resistanceas a location of radical openness
and possibility. This site of resistance is continually formed in that segregated culture of opposition that is our critical response to domination.
We come to this space through suffering and
pain, through struggle. We know struggle to be
that which pleasures, delights, and fulfills
desire. We are transformed, individually, collectively, as we make radical creative space which
affirms and sustains our subjectivity, which
gives us a new location from which to articulate our sense of the world (1990:153).
Hooks words are consonant with the aims of the
new NMAI . This is an intervention, she proclaims.
I am speaking from a place in the margin where I

29

am different, where I see things differently. I am

talking about what I see (1990:152).
This is an intervention, she reiterates. A message from that space in the margin that is a site of
creativity and power, that inclusive space where we
recover ourselves, where we move in solidarity to
erase the category colonizer/colonized. Marginality
is a site of resistance. Enter that space. Let us meet
there. Enter that space (1990:153).
This is Indian Country, the extraordinary
curvilinear, limestone building on the mall in
Washington proclaims, through its form as well as
its contents. Let us meet there. Enter that space.
Should you do so, your views on what constitutes Indian country will be transformed.
Notes

including the Hayden Planetarium at the American

Museum of Natural History and the Epcot Center. See
www.batwinandrobin.com.
8. We are grateful to Paul Chaat Smith for providing us with
a copy of this untitled lecture, which was delivered as part
of the Monthly Curator Series at NMAI, Friday March 4,
2005.
9. All quotes are from a personal communication from
Rickard to J. C. Berlo, March 9, 2005.
10. Yet even this relatively straightforward and modest show
was not without critical controversy. A reviewer for Slate
(the generally responsible and well-regarded on-line magazine) published an ignorant and contentious diatribe
against every aspect of the new NMAI. At his most slanderous when discussing this exhibit, Timothy Noah called
it an example of NMAI selling gallery space to the highest bidder and called for the directors resignation.
(http://slate.msn.com,The National Museum of Ben
Nighthorse Campbell: The Smithsonians New Travesty,
Sept. 29, 2004.

1. Our review is based on three visits to the museum:

Jonaitis attendance at the opening, our joint visit on
Sunday afternoon November 7th, 2004, and Berlos
return visit on Monday November 8th, as well as our
study of the press releases and publications put out to
coincide with the opening (see bibliography).

11. Lowe, Truman, ed., Native Modernism: The Art of George

Morrison and Allen Houser. Washington DC: The
Smithsonian Institution in association with the University
of Washington Press, 2004; See also W. Jackson Rushing,
Allan Houser: An American Master. New York: Harry N.
Abrams, 2004, and Bill Anthes, Native Moderns. Chapel
Hill: Duke University Press, forthcoming, which features
case studies of George Morrison and others.

2. NMAI Building Features Backgrounder, Press

Release from the NMAI Office of Public Affairs,
September 2004, p. 1.

12. Facts and Figures from the Grand Opening of the

Smithsonians National Museum of the American Indian,
NMAI Office of Public Affairs, October, 2004, p. 1.

3. Another feature that seems to have resulted from the fear

of terrorist activity in Washington is that there is no coat
room or locker space in the museum. After the guards
have examined ones bags, one is free to drag a large bagor even a suitcasethroughout the museum, a practice
expressly forbidden in most museums.

13. The literature on this topic is, of course, enormous; we

assume familiarity with that literature on the part of
the readers of this journal and will not reiterate its
familiar critiques here.

4. Personal communication, Rick West, November 7, 2004.

We discovered the director, on a Sunday afternoon, undercover in blue jeans and a work shirt rather than his usual
impeccable suit, strolling through the museum and listening to the comments of the crowds, to learn first hand
the effectiveness of the displays.
5. On the third floor a staffed Resource Center is equipped
with eighteen computers, reference materials, and a
classroom. It did not seem to be fully functional in
November of 2004. We briefly tried to access information
on NMAIs objects using tribal designations, but the computers did not seem to be set up for this yet. Presumably,
an interested museum-goer could find more information
here.
6. Familiar to some because of Bob Dylans group, The Band,
this is by Robbie Robertson and his Red Road Ensemble.
Its lyrics can be found at http://www.sing365.com.
7. Batwin and Robin Productions is a multi-media production company that works for museums and industry. They
designed the introductory exhibit Creations Journey at
NMAIs New York branch, and have done multi-media
installations for a host of museums and corporations,

14. Joseph D. Horse-Capture and George P. Horse-Capture,

Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains
Indian Shirts, NMAI and the Minneapolis Institute of
Arts, 2001.

References Cited
Ferguson, Bruce
1996 Exhibition Rhetorics: Material Speech and Utter
Sense. In Thinking About Exhibitions. Reesa Greenberg,
Bruce Ferguson, and Sandy Nairne, eds. P. 184. New York
and London: Routledge.
Hill, Tom
2004 Introduction: A Backward Glimpse Through the
Museum Door. In Creations Journey: Native American
Identity and Belief. Tom Hill and Richard W. Hill, eds.
Pp. 14, 19. New York: National Museum of the American
Indian.
hooks, bell
1990
Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical
Openness. In Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural
Politics. Boston: South End Press.

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MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2

Mithlo, Nancy Marie

1995 History is Dangerous. Museum Anthropology 19(2):
5057.
Richard, Paul
2004a Explorers of the New: Two Modernists Who are Also
Indian. Washington Post, September 19.
2004b Shards of Many Untold Stories. In Place of Unity a
Melange of Unconnected Objects. The Washington Post,
September 21, p. C1.
Rothstein, Richard
2004 Museum with An American Indian Voice. The New
York Times. September 21, weekend pages 1 and 5.
Volkert, James, et al.,
2004 National Museum of the American Indian. Map and
Guide. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.

2005

Bibliography of New Publications

Associated with the Opening of NMAI
Blue Spruce, Duane
2004
Spirit of a Native Place: Building the National
Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC: The
Smithsonian Institution in association with National
Geographic.

Lowe, Truman, ed.

2004
Native Modernism: the Art of George Morrison
and Allan Houser. Washington DC: The Smithsonian
Institution in association with the University of
Washington Press.
McMaster, Gerald and Clifford Trafzer, eds.
2004
Native Universe: Voices of Indian America.
Washington DC: The Smithsonian Institution in association with National Geographic.
National Museum of the American Indian. Special commemorative issue, Fall 2004 (quarterly publication of the
Smithsonian Institution)
Volkert, James, Linda Martin, and Amy Pickworth.
2004 National Museum of the American Indian: Map and
Guide. London: Scala Publishers in association with the
National Museum of the American Indian.

Janet Catherine Berlo is Professor of Art History and

Co-Director of the Graduate Program in Visual and
Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester in New
York.
Aldona Jonaitis is Director of the University of Alaska
Museum of the North.