First of all, I am very confused what the proper term is for Native Americans. Some people say Indians is back to being the accepted term and others believe it sounds highly offensive.
I cannot say for sure whose views the Museum was built for, however I have some ideas.
First of all, I noticed the building. I grew up in the Southern-Northeast (New York). If you want to know about Native Americans and asked me, I would shout out the Iroquois in a heart beat. The Iroquois lived in longhouses and in settlements of them. They hunted for game and then used their fur for clothing and shelter. This building was not a long house. It was not covered with wood, or fake wood. There were no bunnies or even fake bunnies to be seen. This building symbolized those Native Americans of the West. It was a take off of the Native Americans who built these houses out of mud, dirt and sticks. At one point there was what felt like a cliff over hang and the entire thing reminded me of mud and rock.
If this building was to symbolize Indians, they were certainly not "my Indians."
As for Remembrance and othering, I think the building and the displays explain it perfectly. This is the Museum of the Native Americans, but honestly it took into account the ones in the west. The video in the main cinema, displayed people in the mountains and the great plains- more of the Western Indian.
All in all, I believe the museum is there to remember all Native Americans, but it does spend a much larger time giving recognition to those in the Western plains.
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Dear Sasafras,
ReplyDeleteAs a native of the northeast, I too was surprised by the lack of representation of the American Indians I was familiar with. I pondered about this too as I explored the top floor. Where are the Iroquois or the Powhatan? I didn't even see the Pueblo people or whatever tribe we studied in fifth grade so we could make cute little elemental puppets. I think this museum wants us to learn about the less commonly known tribes. More so, I think they wanted to protray American Indian nations that were still surviving so they could put a name to title. There really aren't any Iroquois people left, so it's kinda hard to show the real human aspect in their exhibits. But I agree that they needed to display many more of the American Indian nations.
Also, about the whole naming thing, I've come to the understanding that the full term "American Indian" is the most proper. I explained it a bit in my blog post, but "Native American" can be taken as negative because of the word "native" and confuses people with "nativists". Yeah it's complicated I know.