"To Indigenize the Western World"—Artist and Organizer Jordan Cocker
Jordan Cocker describes herself as “Indigenous in two ways—as Native American from the Southern Plains, K’gou màyí, a Kiowa woman; and as Pasifika, a Tongan woman.” Thinking of herself “in halves,” however, doesn't reflect her lived experience. “The years spent on and between my two ancestral territories,” she says, “braided together my two lines in a good way. Everything is about the ancestors—who they are by name, what they did, where they went, and the legacy that they created and passed down to me. My ancestors on both sides of my family survived colonization, boarding school, and so many other types of trauma so that I can live in a good way.” The museum’s Dennis Zotigh interviews Jordan for Asian American Pacific Heritage Month.
Inuit Women's Survival Skills, Which Kept Arctic Explorers Alive, Help Heal Residential School Survivors
This May the National Museum of the American Indian was privileged to host four remarkable Inuit women from Nunavut who were in Washington as guests of the Embassy of Canada to attend the opening of the exhibition "Captain George Comer and the Inuit of Hudson Bay." At a related symposium, Bernadette Dean, Rosie Kowna Oolooyuk, Manitok Thompson, and Veronica Connelly spoke of the knowledge of land, ocean, ice, sky, and animal behavior their people shared with George Comer, a whaler who wintered over at Cape Fullerton 14 times in the early 1900s. They also described the knowledge Inuit women needed to make life-saving caribou and sealskin clothing. Now they're concerned with passing that knowledge on, to help museums conserve Inuit collections and to help Inuit women heal from the deep-rooted scars left from attending Indian Residential Schools.
A Brief Balance of Power—The 1778 Treaty with the Delaware Nation
The Treaty with the Delaware Nation, signed at Fort Pitt in September 1778, represents a time when the newly independent United States needed American Indian allies to drive British troops from forts and outposts west of the Appalachian Mountains. Despite the treaty's provisions, however, conflict continued in the Ohio Territory, leading the Delaware people to look for safer lands farther north and west. This month, delegations from the Delaware Nation at Moraviantown, in southern Ontario; the Delaware Tribe of Indians, in northeastern, Oklahoma; and the Delaware Nation, in central Oklahoma, came to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., to see the Treaty of Fort Pitt placed on exhibit and to honor their forebears, who made their marks to secure the future of their people.