cash, pledges and in-kind support amounced to more than 

 $3.5 million in 1995. 



National Museum of the American Indian 



W. Richard West Jr., Director 



The National Museum of the American Indian is an institu- 

 tion of living culture dedicated to the preservation, study, and 

 exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of 

 the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere. The 

 museum's mission is to recognize and affirm to Native com- 

 munities and the non-Native public the historical and con- 

 temporary culture and cultural achievements of the Natives of 

 the Western Hemisphere by advancing — in consultation, col- 

 laboration, and cooperation with Natives — knowledge and un- 

 derstanding of Native cultures. The museum has a special 

 responsibility, through innovative public programming, re- 

 search, and collections, to protect, support, and enhance the 

 development, maintenance, and perpetuation of Native cul- 

 tures and communities. 



When Southern Cheyenne Camp Crier Moses Starr, Jr., an- 

 nounced the opening of the National Museum of the Ameri- 

 can Indian in New York City on Oct. 30, it marked the 

 beginning of a year in which the museum's mission became a 

 reality with the indigenous voice and world view resonating 

 throughout the exhibitions at the Heye Center. As the mu- 

 seum approached its anniversary in late September, more than 

 375,000 museum visitors had experienced the exhibitions and 

 heard the accompanying Native American voices, more than 

 nine times the number who visited the museum in one year at 

 its old location at Audubon Terrace at 155th and Broadway. 

 The inaugural exhibitions of the National Museum of the 

 American Indian were second in museum attendance during 

 the exhibition season in New York City only to the Metropoli- 

 tan Museum of Art, where the exhibition "Origins of Im- 

 pressionism" drew 794,108 visitors. 



"Creation's Journey: Masterworks of Native American Iden- 

 tity and Belief features 165 objects selected for their beauty, 

 rarity and historical significance, and representation of diverse 

 cultures. Displaying objects from tribal groups in North, Cen- 

 tral, and South America, with dates ranging from 3200 B.C. 

 to the 20th century, the exhibition's multivoiced perspective 

 includes anthropologists, curators, historians, scholars, and 

 Native peoples. 



"All Roads Are Good: Native Voices on Life and Culture" 

 features more than 300 objects chosen by 23 Native American 

 selectors, who selected items from the museum's collection 

 that were of artistic, cultural, and personal significance. 

 Selectors' responses to the process and the objects are shared 

 with museum visitors on audio and videotape, as well as la- 

 bels that accompany the objects. "All Roads Are Good" exem- 



plifies the museum's mandate for interpretation by indige- 

 nous peoples with first-person insights and sensitivities to a 

 world view that places the objects along a continuum of liv- 

 ing culture. 



"This Path We Travel: Celebrations of Contemporary Na- 

 tive American Creativity" is a collaborative exhibition featur- 

 ing the collective and individual talents of 15 contemporary 

 Native American artists. The exhibition combines installation 

 with sculpture, performance, poetry, music, and video to pres- 

 ent the artists' views and concepts of creation, the importance 

 of sacred places, and how the Indian universe has been af- 

 fected by conflicts with Euroamencan beliefs and cultures. 

 The exhibition represents how ancient indigenous ideas, as ex- 

 pressed in the archaeological and historic objects in the other 

 exhibitions, still contribute to contemporary Indian world 

 views. 



In conjunction with the opening in October, the museum 

 announced the five recipients of the first annual Art and Cul- 

 tural Achievement Awards of the National Museum of the 

 American Indian. They are Allan Houser (Chincahua 

 Apache), posthumously; Oren R. Lyons (Onondaga); N. Jana 

 Harcharek (Inupiat); Geronima Cruz Montoya (San Juan 

 Pueblo); and Katharine Siva Saubel (Cahuilla). 



On Nov. 19 and 20, in celebration of the Heye Center open- 

 ing, the National Museum of the American Indian Powwow 

 was held at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. Ac- 

 tivities included gourd dancing, intertribal dancing, Caddo 

 stomp dances, Yupik dances, and Iroquois, Ponca and Osage 

 social dances, a lacrosse workshop, a Northern Arapaho tipi 

 construction demonstration, a Hocak (Winnebago) language 

 pro|ect, arts and crafts sales, Ponca and Osage handgames, and 

 Indian and Eskimo Olympics. 



In October, the museum staff began packing and moving 

 more than 45,000 objects from the old location of the mu- 

 seum at Audubon Terrace in New York City to the Research 

 Branch in the Bronx, N.Y Eventually, most of the one-mil- 

 lion-object collection will be moved to the Cultural Resources 

 Center, which will be built in Suitland, Md. 



The design of the museum's Cultural Resources Center in 

 Suitland, Md., was completed in March by the award- 

 winning architectural firm of Polshek and Partners of New 

 York City, working with Metcalf Tobey Davis of Reston, Va., in 

 association with the Native American Design Collaborative. The 

 Cultural Resources Center is scheduled to open in 1997. 



The museum displayed 24 19th-century Navajo wearing 

 blankets from its collections at the Ned A. Hatathli Museum 

 of the Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Ariz., on June 27 

 through June 30. The display concluded with a workshop for 

 Navajo weavers, whose input will be incorporated into the 

 final design and script for the exhibition "Woven by the 

 Grandmothers: 19th Century Navajo Textiles from the Na- 

 tional Museum of the American Indian" planned for the fall 

 of 1996 at the Heye Center in New York City. 



On Oct. 24, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of 

 Connecticut made a $10 million contribution to the National 



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