Situated on a bluff high above the Columbia River near Goldendale, Washington, the Maryhill Museum of Art has an outstanding collection of American Indian art and artifacts which are displayed in a series of galleries. In addition, the Museum has displays of recent acquisitions of Native American art displayed in another gallery. Shown below are … Continued
For the Native American people of Southern California, games and gambling were an important part of daily life. There were a number of gambling games which involved dice and games which involved guessing which hand held a marked stick or bone. In their book The Cahuilla Indians of Southern California, Lowell Bean and Harry Lawton … Continued
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 at the museum collect and the science and creativity that goes in to preserving and interpreting artifacts. Textile arts, ranging from quilts to rugs, often dazzle the eye. … Continued
In 1884, the Ktunaxa (Kootenay, Kootenai, Kutenai) Indians in British Columbia were to receive a reserve on the St. Mary’s River. However, as the area’s ranching potential became known, investors pre-empted meadows traditional used by the Indians. Tensions between the Indians and the new settlers increased in 1886 when two Indians—Kapula and his unnamed partner—were … Continued
The High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon, has a replica of Doris Bounds’ Peace Pipe Museum in Hermiston, Oregon. This museum exhibited her collection from 1962 to 1968. When some of the artifacts suffered serious damage from water leaks and overheating, she closed the museum and transferred most of the collection to the vault in … Continued
Subsistence refers to how people obtained the calories which are needed to sustain life. Subsistence patterns are determined, in part, by the environment and the resources within that environment. In general, Southern California Indians have been classified as hunters and gatherers, meaning that they tended to obtain food from hunting and from gathering wild plants. … Continued
The Underwood family of Underwood, Washington, is descended from the marriage of the daughter of Cascade chief Chenowuth with a U.S. Army officer. At an annual event, known as the Underwood Fair, the family would display their extensive collection of Indian art. Mary Underwood Lane gave many of the Underwood artifacts to the Maryhill Museum. … Continued
Since the beginning of time, according to tribal oral traditions, the people have lived along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Columbia Plateau. Among traditional American Indian people “art” was not a concept distinct from everyday life. Art was simply incorporated into the things people made as a way of enhancing their aesthetic … Continued
In providing a broad overview of the hundreds of distinct American Indian cultures found in North America, it is common for museums, historians, archaeologists, and ethnologists to use a culture area model. This model is based on the observation that different groups of people living in the same geographic area often share many cultural features. … Continued
The High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon, has a display Family and Reservation Community which shows how Plateau Indian identity has been preserved by families. According to the Museum display: “Since ancient times, the Plateau family served as the sanctuary of identity. Despite the changes brought about by reservation life, many Plateau Indians refused to … Continued
