National Museum of the American Indian

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According to the National Museum of the American Indian's website, the museum strives to advance, "knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere, past, present, and future, through partnership with Native people and others. The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life."

There are two sections of the NMAI website which are optimal for educational use. First, is the museum's collection of print resources, designed with educators in mind. These include study guides, posters for your classroom, museum guides, and lesson plans. The other must-see section consists of the museum's more than 30 online exhibits, ranging from horses in Native American culture to how native traditions fared after European contact.

If you're specifically interested in planning for the holidays, be sure to check out the museum's study guide, selections of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, poster, and list of activities on Native American perspectives concerning Thanksgiving.

The museum also offers several audio resources. See how something we view as so definite—time—is actually cultural, by exploring Native American chronological perspectives. You can also use the site's list of radio and film networks to help you research available Native American media.

Visit Indigenous Geography for a wide variety of Native American perspectives on the environment. The site also offers introductory lessons in multiculturalism and curriculum guides for each community presented.

Luckily, for teachers who are interested in visiting the museum in person, there are two locations—DC and New York City, with the archives at yet another site, Suitland, MD. School visits are welcome. If you are considering visiting the New York museum, consider arranging a cultural interpreter, to give a tour from a Native American perspective, or take a look at the upcoming student and teacher workshops.

Kiowa Drawings

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Presents more than 600 drawings by Kiowa Indians—a tribe originally from the Southern Plains—from the 19th and 20th centuries. While many are on traditional buffalo hide, more recent drawings are on paper. These drawings illustrate "tribal social and artistic traditions" as well as the history of contact and conflict. The first of five sections includes 45 drawings created by Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe warriors imprisoned in the 1870s. The largest section offers more than 400 images commissioned by anthropologist James Mooney in the late 19th century as illustrations for his field notes. Additional sections include the Silver Horn pictorial calendar, composed of images used to track time and illustrate stories, and Silver Horn Target Record Book, with images of "warfare, courting, personal dress, the Sun Dance, and stories of the mythical trickster figure, Saynday." The final section offers material by the "Kiowa Five," artists who studied at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1920s and helped establish contemporary Indian painting. Useful for those studying American Indian history, culture, life, and art.

Camping With the Sioux—Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher

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This site presents two fieldwork journals written by anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher during her six-week stay with a group of Dakota Sioux women in 1881. The journals are indexed by date and can be searched or read as a narrative.

Visitors will find a 1,000-word biographical essay about Fletcher and a bibliography of sources, including three books, three Smithsonian collections of related materials, five collections of papers, and six links to sites about Sioux Indians and 19th-century anthropology of the Sioux. A gallery of 36 photographs contains pictures of Fletcher, her two travelling companions, scenes of Sioux life, and portraits of Sioux Indians, including Sitting Bull.

In her journals, Fletcher transcribed 14 folk tales related by her Sioux hosts. These tales are indexed by title and presented separately as well as in the journals. The site offers unique sources particularly useful for students of Native American history, women's history, and the history of anthropology and ethnography.

Oneida Indian Nation: Culture and History

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The Oneida Indian Nation, called the "first ally and steadfast friend" of the fledgling American republic, presents documents and historical studies focusing on the Revolutionary War period and on recent efforts to pursue land claims dating from the earlier period. Includes texts of six treaties or agreements involving the Oneida and the U.S. between 1777 and 1794; statements by the U.S. Congress, Presidents, and New York State regarding the Oneida; and President Bill Clinton's 1994 memo on "Government-to-Government Relations with Native American Tribal Governments." In addition, the site offers six essays by Nation historians and others, ranging from 1,300 to 7,400 words in length, on topics such as the roles the Oneida played in the birth of the U.S. and the War of 1812, and the land claim crusade.

Includes excerpts from an oral history project in which 13 tribal elders discuss food, herbal cures, crafts, annuity cloth, language, and land claims; a timeline; 35 press releases; a cookbook; and essays on lacrosse, legends, and the tribal creation story. The site promises in the future to include significant treaties from other Indian nations. Valuable for those studying American Indian history and culture, the Revolutionary War period, and recent legal efforts by Indian nations to pursue land claims.

Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers and Artists of Color

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Descriptive information about the lives and works of 136 "women writers of color in North America" is provided in this site, designed primarily for high school and college classroom use. Offers introductory material, including images, bibliographies, quotations, biographical sketches, and critical views with regard to writers such as Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Evelyn Lau, Winona LaDuke, Terry McMillan, and Alice Walker.

While the site concentrates primarily on 20th-century figures, it also contains 10 entries on women from the 19th century, including Sarah Mapps Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

The material is arranged into four indexes: name, birthplace, racial/ethnic background, and significant dates. Annotated links to 18 related resources are included.

The site relies on contributions from interested students and teachers, and promises to grow to more than 500 entries in the future.

George Catlin and His Indian Gallery

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George Catlin, a lawyer turned painter, traveled throughout the American West in the early 19th century to chronicle the Native American experience. His paintings of the Plains Indians are the center of this virtual exhibit. From 1830 to 1836, Catlin visited more than 50 tribes from North Dakota to Oklahoma. His original Indian Gallery was designed to document the transformation of Native Americans and "rescue from oblivion" their customs and lifestyle.

Thirty-one of Catlin's more than 400 paintings are presented in this virtual museum, including one of William Clark, the famous explorer of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Designed for middle school and high school teachers the "classroom" section offers lesson plans that incorporate George Catlin's paintings, Native American artifacts, and primary documents to teach students about early American history, geography, and art appreciation. The lesson plans are thematic and feature scholarly commentaries on the life and work of Catlin. A valuable resource for teaching about the Indian Removal of the 1830s, the transformation of the Western frontier, and the encounter of Anglo American and Native American cultures.

Native American Documents Project

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These four collections of data and documents address Federal Indian policy in the late 19th century. The first set includes eight annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs from the 1870s, along with appendices and a map. The second set, Allotment Data, traces the Federal "reform" policy of dividing Indian lands into small tracts for individuals—a significant amount of which went to whites—from the 1870s to the 1910s. This set includes transcriptions of five acts of Congress, tables, and an essay analyzing the data.

The third set includes 111 documents on the little-known Rogue River War of 1855 in Oregon, the reservations set up for Indian survivors, and the allotment of one of these reservations, the Siletz, in 1894. The fourth set provides the California section of an ethnographic compilation from 1952.

Lakota Winter Counts

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This anthropological exhibit displays, explains, and interprets the Lakota pictorial histories known as winter counts. Featuring a searchable database of winter count images, a documentary about Lakota history and culture, and video interviews with Lakota people, website visitors can view images from 10 winter counts and examine their symbols in detail by year with curator comments. Visitors are also able to examine the various symbols used by the winter count keepers to represent plants and animals, ceremonies, health, trade goods, places, people, the U.S. government, and the sky. "Who Are the Lakota" offers a historical overview of Lakota history in 10 segments that include the Lakota and the Sioux people, Lakota origins, westward migration, horse-centered culture on the northern Great Plains, important conflicts and treaties, confinement to the Great Sioux Reservation, and subsequent land cessions.

Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704

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This website documents the 1704 raid on Deerfield, MA, by 300 French and their Native American allies. Visitors are introduced to the raid by a multimedia exhibit that describes white settlement patterns that led to profound cross-cultural tensions.

Explanations includes 15 short essays that provide historical background. "Voices and Songs" provides audio commentary for the 300th anniversary of the raid, three audio versions of Native American creation stories, and 17th- and 18th-century music. Meet the Five Cultures includes brief introductions to the English, French, Mohawk, Huron, and Wobanaki.

Twenty-eight individual biographies include Native Americans, French, and English settlers. Fourteen maps depict Native American territories and the areas involved. After viewing the evidence, visitors are asked to decide whether the raid was part of a larger pattern of cross-cultural violence or an aberration.