A Place To Bring The Tribe

ROBERT LAUTMAN / SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
RIBBONS THAT BOW: Curving bands of limestone on the exterior evoke an eroded mesa; far left, a ceremonial Inca jaguar qero, or cup

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Many of the objects the museum possesses are not just objects. Some are regarded by Native Americans as living, spirit-infused things. The museum has even trained the staff to accommodate visitors who decide to make spur-of-the-moment offerings. It has also returned more than 2,000 sacred objects to tribes that said they were improperly seized by Heye's voracious collecting teams.

It is part of the evolving world of museums, operating under the influence of everything from theme parks to installation art, that presentations make ever more of their points through mood and metaphor rather than written information. This museum is no exception. One long, curving display case holds hundreds of guns and rifles, from finely engraved Spanish pistols to modern Glocks, to bring home the ways in which force has always been the final arbiter in dealings between natives and settlers. Would it be useful somewhere to have that old-fashioned timeline too? Jolene Rickard, a professor at the University at Buffalo and a Tuscarora Indian, who is a guest curator, doesn't think so. "There are other places where you can learn the exact dates of the Trail of Tears," she says. "It's less important to me that someone leave this museum knowing all about Wounded Knee than that they leave knowing what it takes to survive that kind of tragedy." The "tremendous 'before'" is still part of this place. But the "tremendous 'after'" is what the people here care about most.