American Indian Museum, Washington, D.C.

 

Culture of Yupik Tribe of Alaska

Yesterday, we traveled about 140 miles, but it took almost 4 hours as we headed to College Park, MA and the Cherry Hill Park RV park. This campground is expensive, but the closest campground to D.C. (with full hookups). If you don’t need full hookups the Park Service Campground is just as close and much quieter (unless the cicadas are chirping).

Our first day here we are visiting the American Indian Museum since we’ve never been here before. The major exhibits are on the fourth floor. We spent almost an hour in the room which depicts Our Universes, the cultural stories of 8 different American tribes. Some common elements among the stories was the importance of the earth, the sky, and the compass directions. Most of the tribes were in the U.S., but we also learned about Inca traditions, Mexico’s Day of the Dead, and Canadian and Alaskan traditions. There were also videos describing the stories behind the constellations The next major exhibit was about the treaties between the U.S. government and the America’s Indian Tribes. For each treaty, they discussed the viewpoints, negotiators, treaty terms, and the aftermath of the treaty. Viewpoints was interesting because of such wide differences in philosophy and social values between Americans and Europeans. Think of the problems when Americans/Europeans meet the tribal social structure of no property ownership and decisions by the entire tribe versus property ownership and a hierarchical decision making. Most of the aftermaths of the treaties pointed out how the new settlers would negate the treaty within several years because of their need for more land and resources because of the continually growing population or the concept of “Manifest Destiny” – that belief that the U.S. should stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The defeat of Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn was a shock to the Nation, one of the few defeats of the U.S. army, yet a few months later the Indians lost the war and escaped into Canada. Things did not turn around until the 1940’s when a federal judge gave the Indians a victory: treaty rights must be followed. In this case, that the Indians in Oregon and Washington had a right to the salmon harvest. Later were cases that provided reparations for territory stolen from the Indians in California. Then the reservations were allowed to build Casinos in states that allowed any form of gambling. In the 70’s and 80’s Congress passed several laws providing Indians with more rights and services.

Depiction of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

We also toured the Exhibit of the Raven and the Box of  Daylight, an artwork collection from Preston Singletary. There are other exhibits we didn’t see: Indians service in wars and Indian artwork.

Preston Singletary Sculpture