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Native Americans

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Smithsonian Events Week of 1/5-1/11: Bette Davis and George W. Bush

Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday operates the Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit organization working to preserve Native cultures.

N. Scott Momaday and the Buffalo Trust

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Kiowa Indian N. Scott Momaday runs a nonprofit organization working to preserve Native cultures

Inauguration History

From Washington to Biden, Inauguration History

Every four years, D.C. celebrates the presidential inauguration

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Smithsonian Weekend Events: American Indian Holiday Celebration, Extended Hours at Natural History Museum

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Art Market at National Museum of the American Indian

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What’s Cooking: Turkeys at the Smithsonian

For decades, Native American groups requested the return of artifacts and human remains. Though there were occasional repatriations, the protests either fell on deaf ears or tribes lacked the financial and legal support necessary to complete the process.

The Road to Repatriation

The National Museum of the American Indian works with Native Tribes to bring sacred artifacts home again

A canoe Doug Chilton and other Tlingit artisans crafted using techniques mastered by their Alaskan ancestors

Spirit of the Sea

Tlingit artisans craft a canoe that embodies their culture’s oceangoing past

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Spoken Word Comes to the Smithsonian

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On Climate Change: American Indian Museum’s Call to Consciousness

Navajo frybread cooks in an iron frying pan.

Frybread Recipe

A recipe from Foods of the Americas: Native Recipes and Traditions

A frybread meal at a Navajo powwow.

Frybread

This seemingly simple food is a complicated symbol in Navajo culture

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Cartoons Draw on American Indian Culture

James Luna

James Luna is known for pushing boundaries in his installations, where he engages audiences by making himself part of a tableau

“Strong Medicine” Speaks

Recollections from the matriarch of a once hidden tribe

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Ben Nighthorse Campbell: Not Retired

You may know Ben Nighthorse Campbell as a Colorado Senator who was elected in 1993 and served until 2005. But add master jeweler to the list

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Sculpting Her Vision

A photo gallery of Nora Naranjo-Morse’s inspiring outdoor designs

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Sitting Bull’s Legacy

The Lakota Sioux leader’s relics return to his only living descendants

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Tongue Tied

Some 200 Native American languages are dying out and with them valuable history

“I always knew strongly who I was and what I was supposed to do,” says Wiki (here at the mouth of the Klamath River on the Yurok Indian reservation in Northern California).

Making the Grade

Yurok Indian Geneva Wiki is helping other young Native Americans “develop their best selves”

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