In This Issue:

• Native art, artifacts, now just a click away
• Classical Native movement resonates with museum
• NMAI finds itself center stage for history

Native art, artifacts now just a click away

The National Museum of the American Indian launches online access for the public, posting the first 5,500 objects from its extensive collection

By Kara Briggs
NMAI E-Newservice

Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian The online Collection Search page, from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian website, is designed to give the public access initially to 5,500 of the 800,000 objects in the museum's collection. It debuted Feb. 2, 2009.

Courtesy of Jeri Redcorn Jeri Redcorn examines a piece of pottery that she created in the tradition of her Caddoan ancestors. Redcorn is credited with bringing back the pottery arts that Caddo had practiced for millennia. In the background are other pieces she's made. "They were masters in working in that clay," Redcorn said. "They achieved the highest level of ceramics."

Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian Jeri Redcorn's pot is named "Taysha," the Caddo word for fried. The Caddo also used it for people they hadn't met, she said. They referred to the Spanish by that name, and the Spanish, hearing the sound as an "x," made the word "Texas," she said.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian Jeri Redcorn believes her Caddo Head Pot is a unique design—both modern in its asymmetrical shape and ancient in its design. "I really do like that one," she said.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian The intertwining scrolls are common in Caddo designs. "It isn't complex if you draw it out on the flat paper, but when you're drawing it on the pottery, you have to pay attention," Redcorn said. "I struggled with that design at first, but now I can pretty well eyeball things."

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Washington—Jeri Redcorn was 54 years old when she first saw the beautiful clay pottery that would change the course of her life.

The pottery had been unearthed by archaeologists in Arkansas and Louisiana. It was amazingly light-weight for its size, and vastly different from any American Indian pottery she'd seen. And it was made by her Caddoan forbears for thousands of years.

In the 160 years since the Caddo moved away from Arkansas and Louisiana—first to Texas and later, escaping with their lives, to the plains of Oklahoma—generations of Caddo people had never seen, nor heard of these iconic ancestral pots. The skills to make them had been lost.

"We were overcome," Redcorn recalled of that day in 1992. "An elder man, speaking for all of us, said, 'I didn't know we did this.'"

Now, at age 69, Redcorn is known for reviving the Caddo style of pottery, and her pots are among the first 5,500 objects from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian collection to be posted online. The new service debuted on Feb. 2, 2009. View the site at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu/searchcollections/home.aspx.

"If I had had access to an online collection of Caddo art then, it would have made my life so much easier," said Redcorn, who lives in Norman, Okla.

The museum plans to post images and information about its 800,000-object collection on its website. The purpose, said NMAI Curator Ann McMullen, is to make the site educational at the same time as bringing the collection back into the heart of Native communities, at least digitally. Museums worldwide are experimenting with online databases that allow the public to view their collections from home computers.

Smithsonian Institution Secretary Wayne Clough hosted a symposium at the National Museum of the American Indian last month where he talked about the importance of digitizing all 137 million objects in the Smithsonian museums—to bring the material to "young people, especially."

Few museums have ventured to post indigenous collections online, in part out of a recognition of ethical concerns. Such issues are easy to mediate with contemporary art by living artists such as Redcorn. But when the artists and objects are historic, the museum must make sensitive decisions, including whether an object is too sacred to be put on the Internet. To date it has posted objects already on display in its museums, because tribes have approved their public exhibition.

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington attracts 63,000 hits a month for its online collection of 130,000 objects, said Philip Edgar, collection information services manager. But his museum has refrained from posting all of its Taonga Maori collection while it develops a process for consulting with iwi, or tribes, especially for objects whose provenance is unknown. Edgar said he will watch how NMAI deals with similar ethical issues.

The National Museum of the American Indian has been successful in what it calls community curation, in which traditional culture bearers from Native communities advise curators about the care, maintenance and display of objects from their tribes.

NMAI Associate Director for Museum Programs Tim Johnson, who is Mohawk, said the online collection will expand that valuable input. "Now we can do curation via online chatting with someone in a Native community," he said. The result will likely be a correction of the museum's original records. Many of those documents were established by George Gustav Heye (1874-1957), the New York investment banker whose vast historic collection was the foundation for the National Museum of the American Indian.

"You have to remember, the collection was collected by a non-Indian, so the interpretation of that material was not from a Native perspective," Johnson said. "The revolution of this museum is to promulgate that interpretation of the collection by tribes."

Those who use the online collection, such as tribal elders and scholars, can easily share insights and information about the artifacts with museum staff. Associated with every object is a contact button, through which web users can make comments, send corrections, or ask to reprint photos. Curator Ann McMullen is among the NMAI staff who will review the Internet correspondence daily.

McMullen has been working toward linking the public website with the museum's own database since 2006. Staffers studied surveys filled out by tech-savvy Web users, elders, eighth-graders and professional teachers, all of whom the museum imagined might use its online service. The "collection search" site is programmed to recognize historic as well as contemporary names. A map of the Americas allows users to pick a geographic area to easily find objects from a general location, if a tribe's name isn't known.

"We wanted a grandparent to be able to go to a library with a child and use this," McMullen said.

She knows there is work to be done, research that may delay posting of the entire collection for years. Sometimes a historic object may be identified by one tribe, but really originated in another. As tribes correct this information, McMullen said, it will generate insight into gifting, trade, and exchange traditions among various nations, as well as about families who made objects.

Truman Lowe, a Ho Chunk artist and professor at the University of Wisconsin, agreed: "It's not only going to reinvigorate history, it is also going to reinvigorate the art traditions."

In the same way, he said, the very existence of the National Museum of the American Indian, which was established by Congress in 1989, has provided important new links among generations. Lowe remembers when Hopi painter Michael Kabotie found a painting by his father, Fred Kabotie, in the NMAI collection. As museum curators gathered, Michael Kabotie spontaneously shared a history of art in his family and tribe.

Much like Redcorn's discovery of her tribe's pottery and her determination to revive the practice, Lowe anticipates that "a contemporary look at these objects opens a potential for the rebirth of culture. I am more excited about the cross influences that will transpire. It happened historically, and it's already happening with contemporary artists. Technology has a way of speeding up influences, variations on tradition."

To Redcorn, her work being part of the NMAI's online collection is one more sign that no one need go without knowing what Caddo pottery is.

As she found in her effort to recover the Caddo potter's art, the clay from the banks of the Red River would be her greatest teacher. Native art, she said, will usually lead back to something tactile, like a river, a riverbank, a vein of clay.

"Even though we had our language, songs and dances, so much was taken away from who we were—until we were on the plains singing an alligator song where there were no alligators," Redcorn said. "Right now we are all experiencing a lot of pride in who we are. I think that is great."

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Classical Native movement resonates with museum

A growing number of Native American composers create distinctive, yet highly individual themes in classical music

By Kara Briggs
NMAI E-Newservice

Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian Quapaw-Cherokee composer Louis Ballard (1931-2007). Ballard wrote such symphonies as "Incident at Wounded Knee" and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Photo by Katherine Fogden Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate, who is Chickasaw and lives in Norman, Okla., performs at Classical Native, a concert series held annually at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Tate's symphonies and works for chamber groups have been performed across the U.S.

Courtesy of Raven Chacon Composer Raven Chacon is Navajo and lives in Albuquerque, N.M. His compositions have been performed at Classical Native, a concert series at the NMAI. A performer of electronic music, he is also learning from his grandfather to sing Navajo songs.

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Washington—In the hush of his Navajo grandfather singing alone in the desert, Raven Chacon finds the subtlety of a single note. In the story of the Chickasaw Trail of Tears, Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate hears a crescendo. From a Mohawk clan mother's ceremony, Dawn Avery creates a string quartet.

These Native American composers and others are infusing classical music with their distinctive cultural perspectives.

While interpretations of Native Americans in classical music are nothing new, as can be heard in Antonín Dvorák's 1893 "New World" Symphony, a growing number of classical composers from Native nations are charting new musical territory, said Howard Bass of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

"It's clear that now there is forming a critical mass of people from within the Native communities," said Bass, who has organized the museum's Classical Native concert series in Washington, D.C., for three years. "Even some people like R. Carlos Nakai and Joanne Shenandoah have composed music that is symphonic. Clearly, we are witnessing an expansion of the definition of Native music."

Native peoples from North and South America have performed classical music almost since first contact with Europeans. By the mid-20th century, the works of Quapaw-Cherokee composer Louis Ballard (1931-2007), such as "Incident at Wounded Knee," contained the complicated rhythms of Native vocal music. It was so complex, it sometimes challenged symphony orchestras.

"If someone really loves classical music and wants to play Beethoven, more power to him," said classical composer Dawn Avery, who is Mohawk and lives in Maryland. "But what we are doing is expressing ourselves as Indians."

She said there is great diversity in how Native composers express their identity. In some music, the motifs are easily identified. In others, a listener would be hard pressed to identify the composer as Native American.

"I try to break the colonial boundaries of stage and audience," Avery said of her Three Sides Taagi Classical Native Trio, which performed at the museum in November. In one of her recordings, Avery accompanies her cello with vocals, in which her voice represents birds or the wind. "In our last piece, some audience members were asked to come do a stomp dance. We are blending audience, ceremony and the artist."

Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate, who is Chickasaw, often weaves songs from his tribe and others into his compositions.

"There are sounds in our songs, rhythms, in our traditional musicianship, that I draw from and abstract in my music," said Tate, 40, of Norman, Okla. "Classical music strives for all input from every possible nationality. That's actually how classical music evolved, through nationalistic input."

Regional symphonies have performed and recorded many of Tate's works. R. Carlos Nakai, the prominent Native American flutist, has commissioned Tate to compose a work for woodwind quintet, to debut in August 2009, at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

Nakai, who is Navajo and Ute, studied classical trumpet when he was young, until injuries from a car accident prompted him to change his musical course. He turned to the traditional cedar flute, and made it famous. Classical music, even though he calls it ambiguous and Eurocentric, has remained close to Nakai's heart.

"The classical Native movement," Nakai said "is an attempt by Native Americans to revitalize what remains of the old culture, to distinguish the [existing] cultural voice of ancestral traditions and influences of contemporary music within the purview of the Native composer."

Navajo composer Raven Chacon, who lives in Albuquerque, N.M., believes that indigenous influences bind Native classical composers, though different composers will interpret that tradition into their music in different ways.

"I am not really interested in classical music, necessarily," said Chacon, 30. "What I do have is a huge respect for the classical instruments like the oboe and cello. I am completely interested in the way they work."

On his own, he sets up his electronics in the desert and plays noise concerts. In his classical compositions, Chacon prefers to work with single instruments, then distort their sound via electronics. In a recent piece, he placed one of his homemade microphones inside a piano so that vibration of the strings was amplified. Howard Bass of the NMAI explains that Chacon's compositions, often light on notes and lacking in harmony, are frequently described by classical musicians as some of the hardest works they've ever performed.

"At the end of the day, the pieces are still a melody and that melody is inspired by Navajo music," Chacon said. "Primarily, with indigenous American music, we are just dealing with the voice. The voice is almost everything.

"Even the flute music, that's maybe where Native people decided they wanted to mimic the voice. That's what I think I'm trying to do with these [pieces], is mimic the voice. The drum may be secondary, maybe it's more for pulse."

The barriers that keep Native Americans from becoming more prominent in classical music usually occur early—a lack of access to music lessons, generally resulting from poverty.

Most Native composers working today had families who launched them into music lessons when they were very young, and they were encouraged through college and graduate school. Avery and Tate had parents who performed jazz and classical music. Chacon's grandfather, the only other musician in his family, is a singer of Navajo traditional music.

"I would say 20 years ago, there were hardly any blacks in orchestras," said Avery, who is a professor at Montgomery College in Maryland. "First blacks were targeted in educational outreaches, then Latinos. Now it'sthe Native Americans' turn."

Tate, Avery and Chacon travel to Native communities across North America to teach youth how to compose music. Chamber pieces by several of Tate's students were featured at last year's Classical Native concert series at the NMAI. But not all of the kids' compositions are classical.

"We are trying to teach this to our youth," Avery said. "They are so talented and they don't realize it. The kids will write anything, from heavy metal to string quartets."

The questions facing classical Native composers today, such as how to represent Native motifs while staying true to a musical vision, will likely be with them for a long time. As R. Carlos Nakai said, the composers will set the course.

"In an ever-changing world with the influence of others through…intercultural communication and education," Nakai said, "a Native composer will learn to integrate himself or herself into the world as it exists."

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NMAI finds itself center stage for history

The museum sees massive crowds for the inauguration, then hosts the installation of the new leader of the Smithsonian Institution, followed by the State of Indian Nations address

By Kara Briggs
NMAI E-Newservice

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Clayton Old Elk, who is Crow, offers a prayer at the Jan. 26 installation ceremony for Wayne Clough as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, held in the Potomac Atrium of the National Museum of the American Indian. Clough stands at the far right; next to him, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. presented Clough with the key to the Smithsonian Institution's Castle.

Photo by Kara Briggs, NMAI E-Newservice The sun rises behind the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day, while two photographers set up to photograph the festivities from the fifth floor terrace of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The NMAI E-Newservice, in partnership with the Navajo Times, blogged live on Inauguration Day from the museum, where over 400 Native leaders watched the events. Read comments about President Barack Obama from leaders of Indian nations at the blog: www.navajotimes.com/inauguration

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian was part of several nationally significant events in the first six weeks of 2009, starting on Inauguration Day, when it provided refuge for more than 34,000 people from the frigid temperatures.

Located 400 yards from the U.S. Capitol, the museum is among the closest of the Smithsonians to the ceremonies, and inauguration-goers naturally made their way to NMAI's door to find warmth and hospitality in the form of staff that served cups of hot chocolate. Later the museum allowed visitors to nap on its benches and floors before venturing back into the cold.

"Hospitality is a value in all Native American communities," said NMAI Director Kevin Gover, who is Pawnee and Comanche. "It is a value that is very important for the National Museum of the American Indian to share."

The excitement of Inauguration Day had barely waned by Jan. 26, when the installation ceremony for the new secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Wayne Clough, was held in the NMAI's Potomac Atrium. Clayton Old Elk, who is Crow, offered a prayer. Then Clough was given the symbolic key to the Smithsonian Castle by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. The key replaced the oath of office for Smithsonian secretaries in 1964.

As the Washington Post reported on Jan. 27, "Roberts, who famously flubbed when swearing in President Obama…smiled as he said: "I don't know who is responsible for that decision, but I like 'em." The 300 seated guests, and dozens of others watching from the museum's three stories of balconies, erupted in applause.

Clough, 67, former president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, called for greater self-reliance within the Smithsonian Institution, which is the largest museum and research complex in the world.

On Feb. 10, National Congress of American Indians President Joe Garcia delivered the 8th Annual State of Indian Nations address in the NMAI's Rasmuson Theater. Garcia, who is Ohkay Owingeh, praised the "historic museum" as he opened in prayer.

"I sense a connection with this new administration that I could not have anticipated," Garcia said. He lifted, for all to see, one of the silver-headed canes that President Lincoln presented to the 19 pueblos in New Mexico in 1863, acknowledging their sovereignty.

As Garcia spoke of the trip that Pueblo leaders took to meet President Lincoln, he inadvertently called him "President Obama." A gifted orator, Garcia caught himself, then departing from his prepared text, added, "—That must have been the vision that Abraham Lincoln had."

Garcia, whose term as president of the National Congress of American Indians ends in the fall, called on federal agencies to make fundamental change with respect to Indian Country, to invest in Indian Country, to reauthorize the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and to improve education and public safety. And he pledged that Indian people would continue to participate more fully as citizens of the United States.

Again speaking extemporaneously, Garcia declared from the NMAI's Rasmuson Theater stage, "Let us not forget our call. For that's why we are placed on this earth, is to provide for our people, to provide for our young ones, to take care of our elders, to take care of our veterans, to take care of our communities. That is the bottom line. And we will meet that challenge. But the United States of America, under the new president, will also meet that challenge for the well being of all the people of this land."

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The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is located in Washington, D.C. The Museum also operates the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, and the National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md.

The National Museum of the American Indian is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present and future, through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life.

The NMAI E-Newservice is a free news service to news media serving Native America from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The NMAI E-Newservice provides articles, photographs and editorial content for news outlets to use free of charge. Please credit the NMAI E-Newservice, AND use bylines as provided. Kara Briggs, a Yakama and Snohomish journalist, is the editor. She owns Red Hummingbird Media Corp., which contracts with the National Museum of the American Indian to provide this service. Contact her at editor@nmaie-newservice.com or by phone at 503-577-0012 if you have questions, comments or requests, or if you wish to subscribe.

Kara Briggs, Editor
Eileen Maxwell, NMAI Director of Public Affairs
Leonda Levchuk, NMAI Copy Editor
Sarah E. Smith, Red Hummingbird Media Corp., Copy Editor
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