Native American Voices: The People - Here and Now |
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April 8, 2014, Volume 60, No. 29 |
The Annual Elizabeth Watts and Howard C. Petersen Lecture
which will be at the Penn Museum held on Wednesday, April 16, at 6 p.m., will focus on Lacrosse: Play on, Iroquois Nationals! presented by Oren Lyons, Jr., world renowned Native American peace activist, honorary chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team and Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, who will speak about the spiritual origins of lacrosse and his international peacekeeping and environmental efforts around the globe.
Lecture admission: pay-what-you-want.
Native American Voices: The People—Here and Now will stay open until 8 p.m.
Now popular around the world, the game of lacrosse originated among Native American communities. Penn Museum houses a collection of Iroquois lacrosse sticks, several of which are on display in this exhibition. |
Lacrosse Stick pre-1845, wood and hide; Cayuga Haudenosaunee (Iroquois); Canada, Ontario, Six Nations, Grand River Reservation. Known in Iroquois as dehonchigwiis, lacrosse is a Native American game with deep roots in religion. Today, the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team is the only Native American sports team that competes in international competition. |
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War Bonnet 1876, buckskin, wool stroud cloth, eagle feather, horsehair, glass bead, brass and silk ribbon; Lakota, South Dakota. An enduring icon of Native America, this was worn by a male warrior of high rank. |
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Native American Voices: The People—Here and Now, a new exhibition at the Penn Museum, challenges visitors to leave preconceptions about Native Americans behind—and discover a living tapestry of nations with distinct stories, identities and contemporary leaders.
The richly interactive exhibition features a wide range of contemporary Native American voices—including artists, activists, journalists, scholars and community leaders—from around North America. They speak out in video and in audio, sharing stories, poetry and short essays on issues that matter to them today: identity, political sovereignty, religious freedom and sacred places, language, celebrations, art and cultural continuity. Through a central introductory video and at dramatic touch screen towers and multimedia stations throughout the gallery, visitors encounter Native American perspectives on key themes.
More than 250 Native American objects—ranging from 11,000-year-old Clovis projectile points to contemporary art—drawn from the Museum’s collections from around the United States and Canada, help to tell the stories of Native Americans today, their aspirations, histories, art, concerns and continuing cultural traditions.
Material highlights include Lenape objects from the Delaware Valley region, war bonnets and regalia from the Plains and Prairie, intricately woven baskets from Maine and California, robes and regalia, moccasins, jewelry, children’s toys and clothing, contemporary Native American art and world renowned stone tools from New Mexico that are among the oldest objects in the Museum’s collection. Over the course of five years, nearly 300 objects representing more than 100 tribes will be rotated on display. At interactive digital stations visitors may investigate and sort these objects according to personal interests, fashioning their own unique experiences while gaining insight.
A Tapestry of Nations
Far from having disappeared into the American “melting pot,” today’s Native Americans are culturally distinct and diverse. There are more than 565 federally recognized tribal entities in the United States alone (far more if one counts US tribes that are not federally recognized and Canadian First Nations).
The exhibition touches on topics raised by today’s Indigenous leaders—including issues of personal and group identity, tribal sovereignty, language retention and Native American representation—while exploring four main themes:
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Squash Blossom Necklace, silver and turquoise, ca. 1900-1910, Ashiwi (Zuni Pueblo). New Mexico. Jewelry has long been a source of income for Native American communities. This distinctive Zuni style jewelry, featuring multiple small stones, attracts buyers from around the world. |
• Local Nations focuses on the histories and living communities of the Lenape people—the original peoples of Philadelphia and the Greater Delaware Valley region. The Lenape are known as the “grandfathers,” the peoples from whom all other Algonquian-speaking groups are descended. Escaping persecution in the 1800s, many, but not all, Lenape moved to Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Canada where many are now federally recognized as sovereign Delaware nations. Several of today’s local Lenape who chose to stay in the region now hold state recognition in New Jersey and some are seeking recognition at the federal level. Ancient artifacts from this region as well as more recent and contemporary Lenape objects and regalia are part of this theme.
• Sacred Places exploresroles and meanings of places. Natural landmarks are important to Native peoples and ongoing issues around access to those sacred places, are explored. Places are important for many reasons; these are places where their ancestors once lived, where special events may have occurred in their histories and others which hold special resources needed today to continue traditions and strengthen Native American identities. Objects often hold related stories and histories such as family crest objects from Alaska; Southwest pottery made of clay dug from mother earth; and clothing, moccasins and beadwork that hold associations and imagery of the land. Projectile points excavated in the 1930s at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico by Penn archaeologists John L. Cotter and E. B. Howard revealed evidence of an early “Clovis Culture” that flourished more than 11,000 years ago—some of the first solid evidence that Native Americans have inhabited North America for many thousands of years.
• Continuing Celebrations explores the many ways in which contemporary Native American communities come together to mark and sustain their cultural identities. These range from familiar powwows (more than 1,000 powwows are held each year in the US alone), to newer events such as Celebration, a biennial event in Juneau, Alaska that brings together Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian families to celebrate the survival of their cultures. Celebrations often include dance regalia and clothing, oratory, art, traditional foods and language workshops. Many Penn Museum objects come from traditions of celebration and today’s Native artists continue to draw inspiration from objects made by their ancestors and elders such as regalia: shirts, headdresses and leggings, as well as paintings, feasting dishes and crest objects.
• New Initiatives explores ongoing economic, health and educational initiatives in the Native American community. Native American activism has changed governmental policies and continues to create opportunities to raise economic and health standards in new ways. Highlights include the role of casinos, the development of cultural centers and language programs, the tourist market for native arts, new initiatives in the Academy, the return to traditional Native American foods and repatriation legislation. Many objects in the Penn Museum’s collections speak to these issues: jewelry, basketry and textiles created at different times and places for the tourist industry and objects associated with continued health and well-being.
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