Edward Higgins, May 2014

Native American Voices

Most museum exhibitions of Native American art and artifacts are curated with scant reference to the existence of a still-viable cultural tradition kept alive and functioning by contemporary artists, scholars, craftsmen, and oral tradition. But then again the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is not most museums. The result is Native American Voices: The People Here and Now currently on view and curated by more than 80 Native Americans who have lent their expertise to the mounting of the show.

This ambitious show is planned to be open for five years, and during that time the 250 items now on display will be rotated. The items come from a total of 100 tribes. The Museum probably doesn’t fear running out of items—it has some 160,000 objects from Alaska to Florida. Dr. Lucy Fowler Williams, a 23-year veteran, is the lead curator and has spent several years on the project.

Native Voices is divided into four areas: “Local Nations” being the Lenape—the “grandfathers” from whom all Algonquian-speaking groups descend; “Sacred Places,” the natural features of importance to Native Americans, spots of origin, going back 11,000 years; “Continuing Celebrations” are those occasions where cultural identity most frequently shows itself—there are more than 1,000 pow-wows held each year; and “New Initiatives,” which explore the Native American today in a social-economic framework.

The exhibition includes, as curators and/or consultants, people from the following tribes: Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape; Cheyenne; Hodulgee Musogee; Takdeintaan; Hopi; Choctaw; San Ildefonso; Lakota; Chickasaw; Cochiti Pueblo; Cherokee; Tingit; Pawnee; Mandan; Seneca; Oneida; Seminole; Onondaga; and Dine.

Today the federal government recognizes 565 individual tribes, but far more than that exist without federal recognition. The history of Native Americans and United States politics is not the topic; however, the title of the show, Here and Now, is and that means something.

The Museum has been interested in Native American artifacts since its founding in 1887 as its first director, Daniel Garrison Brinton, the first professor of anthropology, guided the pioneer archeologists in the field. They covered the country with expeditions to Mesa Verde, coastal Alaska, and, more locally, at Lock Haven PA, and Moorestown, NJ. All together the Museum has conducted hundreds of expeditions.

Penn Museum has probably done more high-tech shows than many art museums. There are a dozen “towers” that are touch-screen where one can look up any item and search by type, material used, archival images, testimonies and related maps. Many new exhibitions are multimedia and one can listen to stories, hear music, and see videos to explore the artifacts in any number of ways.

“We know the objects in Penn Museum’s collection are extraordinary as documents of different communities, times, and places in history—but we also wanted our collection to speak to the ongoing concerns and changing traditions of the people whose ancestors made them and first imbued them with meaning,” said Dr. Williams.

The exhibition comprises expected items such as highly decorated war bonnets, woven baskets, pottery, and clothing. However, the unexpected is also there with deeply rooted and beautiful beaded footwear, moccasins, boots and carved figures that are so relevant and resonant they could have been made yesterday for tomorrow’s interior designer. The exhibit’s timespan ranges from stone Clovis projectile points which date from 11,000 years ago, to contemporary art. 

The main concerns of Native Americans could be not the beauty of the art, but rather “issues of personal and group identity, tribal sovereignty, language retention and representation.”

The Penn Museum has gone all the way on this show. There is a book, magazine, public programs, and an array of items in the gift shop. And, of course, there is the restaurant which serves such Native American foods as fry bread, roasted root vegetables, buffalo chili, corn pone, dried currants, turkey brined in maple/cranberry syrup, fried hominy, wild onions, and wild salmon with a berry glaze.

Penn Museum, 3260 South St, Philadelphia, PA (215) 898-4000. www.penn.museum

Shown: Buffalo Hide and Pigment. Man’s Painted Buffalo Robe, 1882. Made b: Mrs. Charging Thunder. Culture: Hunkpapa Lakota. Location: United States, South Dakota, Standing Rock Reservation. Image courtesy of Penn Museum Archives #237823

Edward Higgins is a member of The Association Internationale Des Critiques d’Art.