Right (and Wrong) at the Museum

Written by: Abby Ellenburg

Museums are wonderful places. They offer us a portal into history through an immersive experience you won’t find elsewhere. Past, present, and even future collide in these unique spaces for us to enjoy. So where is the issue here? The problem is that many times, the lives of Native Peoples are diminished into a caricature of their rich and vibrant culture, no more than a mere a snapshot of a time long removed from our own. Therein lies the conundrum, the fact is that Native Americans are not some relic of a bygone era, but a living, breathing society that deserve the proper respect and treatment due to them.

            Now, don’t misunderstand me. I love museums. I believe they are an invaluable resource for the education of our society. I also believe in the importance of teaching the greater public about the remarkable history and culture of Native Americans. But we need to do better. Far too often, we are subjected to this idea that Native Americans were simply a thing of the past, but no longer here. Oh yeah, there were a bunch of Indians at the first Thanksgiving, and then they just sort of went out west and… well that’s history for you, now check out these cool arrow heads! Does this sound familiar?

            Where is the true narrative of the expulsion of Native Peoples from their lands by force? About how disease ravaged their populations? Or the boarding school era and forced assimilation? Museums have a tendency to offer a simplistic, watered down version of Native history (Deloria). Obviously no will be able to offer a complete, detailed history and culture of a tribe on a single didactic next to an artifact. But why does it seem to be too difficult to find some sort of respectful way to handle this issue?

            Let’s take a moment and talk about a different kind of institution: living history museums. They’re fun, they’re great for kids and families, and they’re interactive and immersive. It’s great for all! Somah Haaland, a Pueblo from New Mexico, recounts a different experience at a living history experience with an “Indian Village” near Jamestown, Virginia. She tells us of her shock at seeing people, mostly appearing to be white, dressed in traditional Native attire. Performances such as this severely devaluing the importance of Native American clothing in numerous cultural practices. “These types of exhibits make a mockery of Indigenous identities,” says Haaland.

            Exhibits such as these frame Native Americans as though they were extinct. Many times, institutions don’t even show you their history after European contact, or do so in a limited manner. We end up with a romanticized view of Native lives without an accurate representation of the present (Rangel 2). Arrow heads, pottery, textiles, and other art forms are distorted into commodities to be sold in the gift shop at the end of your tour with no regard for the diminishment of their cultural importance to Tribes that still live today. A spiritually significant item to one culture should not be another knick-knack on the wall of another’s.

            This is not to say that it can’t be done. There are institutions out there that have made great strides towards exhibiting Indigenous People in such a way that casts a new light on what a museum can teach us. I was at the Frist Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee last fall and was pleasantly surprised at their special exhibit of Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists. It is the first exhibition of its kind to take a look at solely female artists, past and present. The entire experience was wonderful, but there was one key feature that stood out to me. The didactics were not only in English, but also in the Native language of the artist. It was such a beautiful addition to me, just the simple fact that Indigenous languages have come so close to extinction, as many still are, yet here they were. Right in front of me. At every piece of stunning art. The whole exhibit felt as though it had an air of respectability about it, the information was given in a way that gave historical background, cultural context, and contemporary acknowledgment.

             Native Peoples are not a piece of the past, so it’s time to stop portraying them as such. I cannot overstate then importance of proper representation in museums. These are institution of learning and we need to get it right. These are living, breathing cultures that have a right to be heard through a proper narrative that does not diminish their vitality, past and present. We need history; not just the good, but the bad and the ugly as well. We can’t change the past. We can, and have a responsibility, however, to work together towards a brighter future.

Sources:

Deloria, Philip J. “The New World of the Indigenous Museum.” Daedalus 147, no. 2 (March 1, 2018): 106–15. https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_00494.

Haaland, Somáh. “It’s Time for History Museums to Stop Racist Portrayals of Native Americans.” Teen Vogue. Accessed April 22, 2020. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/museums-and-historical-spaces-disrespect-native-american-history.

“Native Women Artists - Frist Art Museum.” Accessed April 22, 2020. https://fristartmuseum.org/calendar/detail/hearts-of-our-people-native-women-artists.

Rangel, John Paul. “Moving beyond the Expected: Representation and Presence in a Contemporary Native Arts Museum.” Wicazo Sa Review 27, no. 1 (March 22, 2012): 31.