For the last 20 years, the National Museum of the American Indian's annual film festival has provided a venue for Native filmmakers who are telling their own stories in their own voices and using the medium as a catalyst for change. This year, from November 18 through 27, the museum presents Native Cinema Showcase entirely online, with many of the selections available to viewers around the world. Here, the museum’s New York film programmer highlights showcase films for every audience.
Join us to celebrate the Day of the Dead virtually with cultural and environmental presentations, music, and art online. Share memories of your loved ones on the museum's Facebook page. The roots of el Día de los Muertos are millennia-deep in Indigenous Mexico. Today, the holiday is celebrated in cities and towns throughout the United States and, increasingly, around the world. In addition to giving an overview of the observance and a look at the virtual programs being offered by the museum this weekend, Dennis Zotigh provides links to online resources, including family activities and good books for young readers.
Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day! On Monday, more states, cities, and communities than ever will observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day in place of or in addition to Columbus Day. They’re part of a larger movement to see a more complete and accurate history of the United States taught in our schools and public spaces. Given research showing that the majority of state and local curriculum standards end their study of Native American history before 1900, the importance of celebrating the survival and contemporary experience of Native peoples has never been clearer.
On Monday, October 12, 14 states and the District of Columbia, more than 130 cities, and growing numbers of schools will observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day. If you and the young people in your life are looking for ways to honor and celebrate Native America at home, the teacher services coordinator at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., has ideas—from research resources for making your garden a native ecosystem, to good books for readers of all ages, to online programs where Native guests discuss issues of importance to us all.
On National Park Service Founders Day, the museum looks at the changing relationship between Native Americans and the National Park Service through the eyes of three Native rangers and interpreters: “I think Native interpreters steeped in their own tribal cultures are inclined to go the extra mile to educate the public about other vantage points of an historical event or issue,” writes Roger Amerman (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). “I worked extremely hard to tell a complicated story. Even when I was off the clock, I was still thinking of how to add to the story of my park.”
On National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day, Kiowa tribal member Dennis Zotigh pays respect to the veterans who served during the Korean conflict, and especially to the three Kiowa soldiers who gave their lives there. Dennis, whose uncle served in Korea, also shares memories of performing with a Kiowa cultural group in Seoul nearly 20 years ago and his impressions from that trip.
As the country debates racist symbolism in monuments, sports, and commercial brands—and the Washington NFL franchise considers dropping the racial slur from its name—the director and board chair of the National Museum of the American Indian take the stand that the appropriation of Native language and imagery never serves to honor Indigenous people, histories, and cultures. On the contrary, it perpetuates racism and legitimizes racist acts.
On June 25 and 26, 1876, warriors of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho nations defeated Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Americans have always remembered the battle. What we often forget are the difficult decisions tribal leaders made afterward to ensure the safety of their people. The values that guided them then—generosity, perseverance, bravery, and wisdom—continue to serve the Lakota people today.
For Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month, Dennis Zotigh, a cultural specialist at the National Museum of the American Indian, invited Native friends to tell us how their traditional culture saw its LGBTQ members. A Chiricahua Apache friend replied, “Now, Dennis, this is a human question, not [just] Native.” We agree. But we also appreciate hearing what Native Americans have learned, reconstructed, or been unable to reconstruct about this part of our shared history and experience.
The first Native Hawaiian cultural interpreter on the staff of the National Museum of the American Indian explores the importance of aloha in the Hawaiian worldview. “More than a greeting or salutation, aloha is like a feeling that encompasses many other feelings,” Gabrielle Lee writes, a set of values that “work together to build a profound sense of love and respect for others.” In the spirit of aloha, she sees museums as places to learn together. Celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by exploring the Smithsonian’s collections of art and objects from Hawai‘i and the Pacific: https://www.si.edu/spotlight/asian-american
In the early 20th century, Native people responded to the proclamation of Mother’s Day with powwows, ceremonies, rodeos, feasts, and songs that honor Native mothers. How do American Indians celebrate today? Recognizing that family traditions for many of us will be different this year, Native friends from across the United States and Canada share their thoughts on Mother’s Day.
Misty Dawn Lakota (Oglala Lakota) has been a member of the National Guard and a special agent with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Justice Services. She currently serves as a Chief Warrant Officer Two in the U.S. Army Reserves, awaiting deployment to Afghanistan, and a supervisory special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement. As the museum looks ahead to the dedication of the National Native American Veterans Memorial, Chief Lakota talks to us about the women in her family who have inspired her and the people for whom she serves.
Most of the Native American art we see in museums, in the United States and around the world, was created by women. In many traditional tribal governments, women formed the upper council, responsible for decisions of war and peace, and women have been elected to the highest offices in 20th-century Native nations throughout the United States. In short, Women’s History Month is important to our museum. Here are highlights of programs on the calendar in Washington, D.C., and New York City throughout March 2020.
The National Museum of the American Indian has taken a major step toward making our collections more widely available: We have posted all of the museum’s ethnographic and contemporary art collections to the Smithsonian’s collections search center, more than tripling the number of our object records online. Equally important, a long-term, multi-institutional project to reconstruct objects' acquisitions history is adding significantly to what we know about the collections, the history of the museum, and collecting practices over time.
Everything people need to know to join the National Museum of the American Indian in celebrating the diversity and contributions of Native Americans and Alaska Natives during Native American Heritage Month this November. For friends unable to visit Washington, D.C., or New York, the museum is webcasting many of these public programs live, then archiving them online.
Suzan Shown Harjo has helped shape current ideas about cultural representation and respect. In Congress and the courts, she has advocated for reforms from the restoration of Native American religious freedoms to the protection of sacred lands. And she has held the Smithsonian and other museums to higher standards in working with Native people and their cultural patrimony. Friday, September 20, we honor her life and work at a symposium on the National Mall in Washington and live online.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Forty years ago, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act finally finally extended that right to the country's Native citizens. Here Native Americans who observe traditional ways talk about religious freedom.
When the museum asked Native Americans if their families celebrate Thanksgiving, a friend from the Crow Agency in Montana spoke for many Native people when she told us, "My Dad used to say, 'We give thanks everyday. . . .' " The Ohenten Kariwatekwen is often called the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, but translated directly the name refers to "words spoken before all others." The Haudenosaunee nations—the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora—traditionally open and close every important gathering with a version of these thanks.
Six Nations Indian Museum and the Tracking Project
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.
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.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Conscience_Point_copy.jpg)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/IPD_2020_presenters_stripe_across_12_by_7.jpg)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Strike_the_Kettle_Bighorn_Muslin_20-5176a.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Adrian_Stevens_and_Sean_Snyder_1500-750.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Gabbi_Lee_Aloha_2020.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Stone_family_cover_copy.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Pamyua_16_to_9.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Suzan_Harjo_N2N_Smithsonian_Magazine.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Comanche_ritual_fan_22-9197.png)
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blogging/featured/Inuit_visit_blog_women.png)