One gallery in the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, is dedicated to The Secret Life of an Artifact. This display provides a behind-the-scenes look at the museum collection and the science and creativity that goes in to preserving and interpreting artifacts. One of the displays in this gallery looked at American … Continued
The Rocky Mountains stand out from the Northern Plains of Montana and Alberta. For the aboriginal people of the Northern Plains—the Southern Piegan (Pikuni), the Northern Peigan, the Kainai (Blood), and Siksika—these snowcapped mountains were known as the Backbone of the World. According to an information sign on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana: “The modern … Continued
Jason Pero Nine days ago a deputy of the Ashland County Sheriff’s office put two bullets into the heart and shoulder of eighth-grader Jason Ike Pero. Attempts to revive him failed and he died at the scene. The 14-year-old was a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewas, a tribe of some … Continued
The Athabaskan (also spelled Athapaskan and Athabascan) language family is found in the western American Indian culture areas. Linguists feel that the Athabaskan language family is one branch of a larger genetic grouping called Athabaskan-Eyak. Eyak is a single language which was spoken on the south coast of Alaska and which is nearly extinct. Proto-Athabaskan … Continued
Both spoken language and sign language are capable of communicating a great deal of information, but they have a limited physical range. American Indian hunting parties, for example, often needed to communicate across long distances to coordinate their hunts, and this communication needed to be quiet so as not to alert the game to the … Continued
Indians, according to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, were going to simply disappear by the end of the century or in the early twentieth century. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being … Continued
The Southeastern Woodlands is an area which is bounded by the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands of Arkansas and Missouri and the dry plains of eastern Texas on the west and the low plateaus of Kentucky and Tennessee and the interior plains of Illinois on the north. The eastern boundary is the Atlantic Ocean and southern boundary is … Continued
The Choctaw, at the time of European contact, were a loosely organized confederacy composed of three distinctly different divisions: Okla Falaya (Long People), Okla Tannap (People of the Opposite Side), and Okla Hannalia (Sixtown People). The people were living in more than 100 autonomous villages. With regard to language, Choctaw is a Muskogean language which … Continued
In major museums, only a small fraction of the artifacts held by the museum are on display and interpreted for the public. Most of the museum’s artifacts are in vaults where they are available only to researchers. The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History maintains a Visible Vault in which visitors can view hundreds … Continued
The Southwest Culture Area is a culturally diverse area. Geographically it covers all of Arizona and New Mexico and includes parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Texas as well as parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Much of this area is semi-arid; part of it is true desert (southern Arizona); and part … Continued
