Museum's opening attracts thousands of indigenous North and South Americans

Observer Staff

1/25/2005 12:00:00 AM

WASHINGTON (AP)-A colorful Native Nations procession-called the largest gathering in history of North and South America's indigenous people-heralded the Sept. 21 opening of the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of the American Indian.

Thousands of Indians from Alaska to South America and some 400 Native Hawaiians joined a half-mile procession along the National Mall. The flags, feathers and bright Native clothing made for a multicolored display, and the air was filled with the smell of burned sage and the sounds of drums, bells and music.

Museum officials estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000 people.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, who sponsored the Senate bill authorizing the museum, said he was motivated by a sense that Indians had been unrecognized in the nation's capitol.

"In this city of monuments there was no statue, no monument, honoring the first Americans," Inouye told the assembled crowd as dragonflies darted about in the bright sunshine. "This monument to the first Americans is long overdue."

Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, said the gathering made it clear "that we have these common ties."

"We all are so proud and humble and appreciate the respect," said Apoliona, who noted that the museum's place on the National Mall was a great honor.

"The last space for the first people," she said.

Smithsonian Institution Secretary Larry Small said the museum will be around for generations of American Indians to enjoy.

"And that is a promise that we will keep," he said to applause, as Indians recognized a reference-deliberate or not-to promises the U.S. government had made and then broken to Indian Tribes in the past. "It's a living tribute to the first inhabitants of this nation."

Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and member of the Chickasaw Nation, read a statement from President Bush calling the museum "a powerful reminder of the spirit, pride and vitality of our Native peoples."

Museum Director Richard West, wearing a Cheyenne Indian headdress at the opening ceremonies echoed Inouye's sentiments.

"Today Native America takes its rightful place on the National Mall in the very shadow of the nation's Capitol building itself," he stated. "Visitors will leave this musueum experience knowing that Indians are not part of history. We are still here and making vital contributions to contemporary American culture and art."

The Capitol provided a stunning visual backdrop to the speakers at the dedication ceremony. Paul Brown, a 58-year-old member of the Pocomoke Tribe from Maryland's Eastern shore, said he found the juxtaposition "funny."

"The government has never been overly pleasant to Indian people," said Brown, dressed in full regalia, with 32 feathers hanging off his belt.

Stephen Adkins, 58, chief of the Chickahominy Tribe outside Richmond, Va., said the museum reflects more than Indian history.

"People think of museums as history and the past, but I look at it as who we are today," said Adkins, wearing a full headdress of turkey feathers. "We're doctors, lawyers, teachers and blue-collar workers."

But not everyone was in a celebratory mood.

The American Indian Movement, a sometimes militant group, issued a statement claiming the museum failed to display "the sordid and tragic history of America's holocaust against the native nations and peoples of the Americas."

The museum's design is unlike any other structure in Washington's wealth of monuments and museums. Built at a cost of $214 million, the sweeping lines represent a communing with nature as the country's Tribal peoples did.

It houses 8,000 objects from across the Western Hemisphere. Four million visitors a year are expected to see the museum's movies and music; paintings, photographs and sculptures; masks, weapons and animals; jewelry and medals; even food and plants.

The museum sits on a four-acre site between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, and takes up the last remaining spot on the grassy National Mall. It is surrounded by 700 trees and fronted by a wetlands area with plants such as wild rice and yellow pond-lily.

Its exterior, made from Kasota limestone quarried from Minnesota, is rounded to reflect the curves of the earth, sun and moon, and the inside features a skylight topping off a series of narrowing concentric circles that make up the building's ceiling.

A good place to start a visit is at the 125-seat Lelawi Theater on the fourth floor, where viewers can get a museum overview by watching a 13-minute presentation called "Who We Are."

Simultaneous images are beamed at viewers from three places: small video screens in the center, a 40-foot planetarium-like dome on the ceiling, and a rock-shaped projector on the floor, which starts out as a storyteller's fire.

The film shows Indians working, praying and hunting, along with landscapes from South Dakota's Black Hills to the Alaskan coast, and animals such as elk and whales.

The museum opens with three permanent exhibits: "Our Universes," featuring Tribal philosophies and world views; "Our Peoples," a look at historical events from a native peoples' perspective; and "Our Lives," which focuses on native people today.

The "Our Peoples" exhibit tackles some issues of interaction with the U.S. government and its European predecessors. It includes highlights-such as U.S. currency with the faces of American Indians-as well as lowlights, from treaties violated by the government to weapons used to kill Indians.

Next to a display of European swords, for example, the text grimly notes that these weapons "easily penetrated Indian shields and allowed Europeans to kill their opponents at arm's length."

But there is only a passing acknowledgment of Tribes' relatively recent involvement in gambling casinos, income generators for nearly 40 percent of the 562 federally recognized Tribes. In "Our Lives," a panel titled "Hard Choices" talks about the deep division over gaming within Native America.

Tribes made wealthy from gaming revenue-including the Pequots and Mohegans-contributed a total of $33 million toward the museum's $214 million cost. The Oneida Indian Nation of New York donated $10 million of that.

There is also a changing exhibition gallery, which will feature the art of American Indian artists George Morrison and Allan Houser in its inaugural exhibit, "Native Modernism."

Visitors can also check out interactive displays as they make their way from one exhibit to the next. In one display-a collection of animals made of wood, ceramic and other materials-visitors can touch a computer screen that brings up information about each one.

Missing from the opening festivities, however, was the architect who designed the stunning tan building, layered in swooping levels of Minnesota limestone rounded to depict the curves of the Earth, sun and moon.

Douglas J. Cardinal, a Canadian, was hired as architect in 1993, but he wound up in a dispute with the architectural firm that he subcontracted for, GBQC of Philadelphia, claiming he was losing money.

The Smithsonian failed to settle the differences between the two parties and fired both in 1998. Another architectural team finished the work.

Two months ago, West wrote Cardinal a three-page letter, asking him to attend Tuesday's opening ceremonies and offering to pay for Cardinal's travel and accommodations.

"There I would like to recognize and thank you publicly for the gift of your work and artistic inspiration to the National Museum of the American Indian in the form of its signature building in the monumental core of America's capital," West wrote.

He called Cardinal's design a "a principal physical and, indeed, spiritual marker for the native peoples of this hemisphere long beyond the lives of either of us."

But Cardinal, a Blackfeet Indian, turned down the offer after consulting with family members and Tribal Elders.

"It was not a gift but professional work for which I should be reimbursed," wrote Cardinal, who claims he is owed $1 million for the work he did on the museum. Responded Smithsonian spokesman Thomas Sweeney: "The Smithsonian Institution paid Mr. Cardinal up to the time of the termination."

Cardinal's design is unlike any other structure in Washington's wealth of monuments and museum. Built at a cost of $214 million, the sweeping lines represent a communing with nature as the country's Tribal peoples did.

It houses 8,000 objects from across the Western Hemisphere.

Cardinal, who said he's considering a lawsuit, allowed that it wasn't easy for him to skip the ceremonies.

"It's very difficult. I put so much of my life into it," Cardinal said in a telephone interview from Ottawa, Ontario, where his firm is based. "But I have every faith in the American public and the American system. I just hoped the story would have come out sooner."

Cardinal, 70, said he's seen photos of the museum and that the "broad strokes" are consistent with his original design.

"I would have wanted every note to carry the detail," he added. "The play between the glass and the stone. I usually recess the glass into stone so you can't see the frames." Cardinal, who also designed the Canadian Museum of Civilization, said work has been hard to come by since he was fired.

"We haven't had any major commissions since," he said. "It's been a real challenge to survive. We're hoping that when the story gets out, people will want us to make a contribution again."

Before the procession, the mall was filled with Indians dancing to drumbeats and traditional music.

A group of five White Mountain Apache Indians from White River, Ariz., added to the drumbeat with shaking metal balls around their shoes. Four had their chests painted black with white lettering while the fifth was painted white with black lettering. Wooden headgear reached two feet above their heads, which were covered in masks.

Nearby, Aztec Indians from San Francisco danced with feathers stretching six feet above their heads.

The museum opened to the public in the afternoon, and musicians, dancers and storytellers began the First Americans Festival, which lasted throughout the week.