Reports of the Museums and Research Institutes 



51 



select objects from the NMAI collections to represent their 

 communities in the opening exhibitions. Native ceremonies, 

 blessings, and offerings during these visits have added to the 

 center's rich Native involvement. 



The move of the NMAI collection from the Research 

 Branch in the Bronx to the Cultural Resources Center 

 continued during the year, which ended with a tally of ap- 

 proximately 60,000 objects being moved since the project 

 began. The complex move involves many museum disciplines 

 including both the conservation and curatorial departments. 

 Because of the Mall museum exhibition creation process, spe- 

 cific tribal collections were moved to the CRC in 1999 in 

 order to be examined by participating Native delegations. 

 Individual objects selected by the delegations will be 

 incorporated in the opening exhibitions to represent their 

 communities. Additionally, because of Native involvement, 

 each shipment is blessed in a ttaditional manner upon depar- 

 ture from the Research Branch and upon arrival at the CRC. 



The new NMAI quarterly publication American Indian was 

 mailed to museum members in February 2000. This 32-page 

 four-color publication "celebrates Native traditions and 

 communities." The publication is a benefit of membetship 

 in the NMAI. The first issue highlighted the Mall museum 

 ground-breaking and its symbolism; an NMAI project as- 

 sisting a Chontal community in Mexico with maintaining 

 its culture; and how NMAI's repatriation program can revi- 

 talize a community's ceremonial life. American Indian also 

 includes tegular features, including a children's section. 



The NMAI exhibition "Woven by the Grandmothers: 

 Nineteenth-Century Navajo Textiles from the National 

 Museum of the American Indian" began its 14-month tour 

 of Latin American in 2000 at the Museum of Anthropology 

 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The exhibition was cosponsored 

 by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational 

 and Cultural Affairs and was designated as an official pro- 

 gram of the White House Millennium Council. It also 

 ttaveled to the National Palace of Cultute in Guatemala 

 City, Guatemala; the National Museum of Art in La Paz, 

 Bolivia; the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norte Americano in 

 Lima, Peru; and the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino 

 in Santiago, Chile. This traveling exhibition is the first in 

 recent yeats to bring Smithsonian collections to a venue out- 

 side of the United States. 



The Los Angeles Times on January 9, 2000, published a 

 comprehensive article about the NMAI. The NMAI's unique 

 mission and active fulfillment of its congtessional mandate 

 also drew coverage in publications such as the Baltimore Sun 

 and the New York Times. The NMAI's outteach to its mem- 

 bers and the general public in 2000 also included a traveling 

 exhibition that explained the concept and design of the Mall 

 museum. The exhibition, informally called a "City Tour," 

 had one-day showings in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Los Ange- 

 les, and Denver. 



The museum's Community Services Department contin- 

 ues to work regularly with tribes throughout the hemisphere 

 in cultural exchanges, wotkshops, and other programs. For 

 example, a day-long workshop was held this year by the 

 NMAI in Sonoma County, California, to introduce a new 



generation of basket weavers from Pomoan ttibes to a sedge 

 and willow gathering area that was not known to them. As 

 development erases traditional gathering areas for basket- 

 making materials, connecting weavers to previously 

 unknown sites helps to perpetuate theit art and craft. The 

 workshop was held in conjunction with an NMAI exhibition 

 "Porno Indian Basket Weavers, Their Baskets and the Art 

 Market. Porno weavers, storytellers, dancers, and others 

 tribal members participated in the exhibition programming 

 and traveled to New York from California. 



During the past year, NMAI's intetdisciplinary research 

 has been focused in Peru, Mexico, and the North American 

 Plains, Southeast, and Southwest. Cutrent research with and 

 for indigenous communities is creating the inaugural exhibi- 

 tions for the museum on the National Mall, which will 

 encompass the wotld-view and philosophies, histories, and 

 vitalities of indigenous peoples. NMAI's cutatotial staff is 

 working collaboratively with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, 

 Eastern Band of Cherokees of North Carolina, Oglala Lakota 

 of South Dakota, and Quechua of Peru on the first sevetal of 

 the approximately 35 tribal consultations that will be the 

 basis of tribally curated exhibitions at the Mall museum. 

 Ttibes will also select objects from the NMAI collection to 

 represent their cultures in three planned exhibitions: "Our 

 Universes," "Our Peoples," and "Our Lives." 



National Museum of Natural History 



Robert W. Fri, Director 



The National Museum of Natural History enhances the un- 

 derstanding of the natutal world and humanity's place in it. 

 The museum's researchers study natural and cultural diver- 

 sity by collecting and identifying specimens ot natute and 

 human invention, establishing relationships among them, 

 and explaining the underlying processes that generate, 

 shape, and sustain their diversity. The close linkage among 

 research, outreach, and collections stewardship is a hallmark 

 of the museum, lending perspective and authenticity to its 

 research and authority to its outreach. 



In the year 2000, the National Museum of Natural His- 

 toty was once again the most visited museum in the world, 

 welcoming neatly 9.5 million visitors, 35 percent more than 

 in 1999. 



Greeting these visitors was the recently tefurbished 

 Kenneth E. Behnng Family Rotunda, featuring our famous 

 African Bull Elephant in newly renovated surroundings. 

 The naturalistic setting, incorporating native African grasses 

 and animals, gave visitors a more complete picture of this 

 animal's place in its ecosystem. The diorama introduces im- 

 portant ideas in botany, entomology, and mineral sciences, as 

 well as zoology. 



After six years of development and consulration with 

 communities throughout the African diaspora, the new per- 

 manent exhibition "African Voices" opened at the museum. 

 The multimedia exhibition features the voices of Africans 



