‘ They’re our friends and our relatives’
Oklahoma tribal objects return home in First Americans Museum exhibit
The blues, oranges, pinks and purples of dawn greet visitors upon entering the dimly lit exhibit, sparking feelings of new beginnings and creation.
Between the panes of glass and the colorful backdrop are objects of all shapes, colors and uses. Some were meant to be worn, some meant to be played with, some meant to cook or eat with.
The “WINIKO: Life of an Object” exhibit at the First Americans Museum explores the life within these cultural materials, as well as the historically troubled relationship between Native people and museums.
After more than a century spent in
storage, 144 objects bought from Native American tribes in Oklahoma between 1909 and 1914 are returning home in a 10year loan agreement between the First Americans Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Welana Queton, curatorial specialist and member of the Osage, Muscogee and Cherokee nations, has spent the last five years researching the field notes of object collector Mark R. Harrington, tracking down the descendants of the people the objects were bought from, and ensuring through tribal discussions the objects are displayed in the most thoughtful way possible.
Each of the 39 tribes in Oklahoma is represented in the WINIKO exhibit, though some contemporary pieces were commissioned for those who didn’t have much in Harrington’s collection.
Queton and museum staff see the WINIKO exhibit — winiko is the Caddo word for everything on earth, in the universe and beyond — as a homecoming for these objects that never should have left.
“I want (visitors) to take away the understanding that our objects have life in them,” Queton said. “They’re not just artifacts. They don’t go behind glass. They deserve to be used and remembered.”
‘Proper representation for everyone’
With an all-Native curatorial team, the First Americans Museum is returning the authority that has been taken from tribes over the years to decide which indigenous objects are displayed in museums and how.
Every object in the exhibit is displayed with full permission and discussion with the tribe it’s associated with.
“That was definitely the most important part — proper representation for everyone,” Queton said.
Sometimes, tribes said something wasn’t okay for display and the museum respected that, Queton said.
One instance was with a Shawnee football, which is typically destroyed after being used in a ceremonial game. In discussions with Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, it was concluded it wasn’t appropriate for the ball to be displayed. For transparency and a teaching moment, there is a label for the missing football explaining the tribe’s wishes.
An Arapaho Ghost Dance dress is partly displayed through holes in a box. The Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes were okay with the dress being displayed, but Queton said a lot of tribes are sensitive to the Ghost Dance religion and would not be okay with seeing the dress.
“If it was used in a ceremony ... it would hold a lot of power,” Queton said. “Some people (believe) it’s not for their eyes to see.”
Creation: ‘Made with a lot of love and care’
Joyce Big Soldier Miller, Iowa, stood in the room surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all dressed in their best Iowa clothes. A breechcloth, or rérokina, that belonged to her great-grandfather Benjamin Hallowell was laid out on a table.
Before Big Soldier Miller was contacted by the First Americans Museum, she had no idea that her ancestor had sold the item to a collector in the early 1900s. Finding this out, and that the museum wanted to use it in their display, was an exciting and proud moment for her and her family.
She said terms like glad, happy, elated weren’t nearly enough to describe how she felt when Queton invited her family to reunite with that piece of her great-grandfather and share what knowledge she had of him.
“We gave our blessing to the museum to use (the breechcloth),” Big Soldier Miller said. “Because it’s a blessing to us, to come from Grandpa and to have his blood in our blood. We walk in his same tracks.”
The reunion represented a connection spanning seven generations, between Hallowell, his breechcloth and his descendants.
Hallowell’s breechcloth, something he likely wore often and treasured, still has his life inside of it, Big Soldier Miller said. That knowledge was evident as her family members touched it, and spoke of what it meant to them.
“All of us were emotional, (had) tears in our eyes,” Big Soldier Miller said. “To touch the same little bead that maybe Grandpa did. ... There was an awe and a reverence to be in that room.”
Big Soldier Miller’s son, Randy Miller, took on the role of leading the family that day, she said.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry, mother, that it’s lost to us. But it’s good that we could share it,’” she said, recalling her son’s words. “That goodness, and that life of that article that belonged to our greatgrandpa.”
Hallowell’s Iowa breechcloth is found in the first section of the exhibit, titled Creation. Each object holds a special meaning for tribal members today, whether that’s a direct connection to an ancestor, a reminder of something similar owned by their family, or new insight on life for Native families a century ago.
The information cards for each object tell visitors the name of the object in its tribe’s language, as well as the English word, when it was created and collected, as well as its cultural context. With the objects whose family connections were discovered, photos of both the ancestor and their descendants are included.
This sets the First Americans Museum apart from other museums with indigenous objects on display, said museum CEO and Director James Pepper Henry, a member of the Kaw and Muscogee nations.
“A lot of these objects were made with a lot of love and care,” Pepper Henry said. “We try to put that context back with the collections, from our perspective. A lot of museums will just put something on display for its aesthetic value and not really understand or try to make that connection with the cultures that that they come from.”
Collection: ‘Black and white world’
As visitors move along, they find themselves in the second exhibit area, titled Collection. Gone are the beautiful colors of dawn, replaced by black and white and gray.
The transition is reminiscent to Dorothy’s journey from the black-andwhite Kansas to the Technicolor world of Oz, said Pepper Henry, but backwards.
“Our items are in the Technicolor world when they’re in our communities, they’re in their context,” Pepper Henry said. “And then these things are collected, and they’re taken to the museum, and they’re there in that black and white world. ... Museums historically have cared for objects, managed objects and interpreted objects very differently than we would have been used to.”
This section includes information about Mark R. Harrington’s travels and motives behind his collection. Harrington worked under George Gustav Heye, who founded the Museum of the American Indian in 1916 and whose collection became the basis of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
As Harrington traveled throughout Oklahoma — to places including Miami, Pawhuska, Tulsa, Shawnee, Oklahoma City, Anadarko and Lawton — Queton said hundreds of tribal members lined up to sell their items. Those who sold items likely just needed the extra money, Pepper Henry said, as tribes were being forced to transition to a monetary culture.
“The (breechcloth) of my Grandpa, I’m sure it had a lot of meaning to him,” Big Soldier Miller said. “Our people that let these (items) go ... (were) going through hard times, they were trying to make ends meet.”
Harrington believed he was helping the Native Americans, as he stated in a 1909 letter, “first by giving them good prices for their old relics, and second by getting the old things, which tend to make them keep up the old ways, out of their hands.”
Heye and Harrington both believed — along with their contemporaries — in The Vanishing Race theory, that Native American culture was disappearing and that they were doing the right thing by collecting these objects.
“The irony is that the people that collected these things thought we weren’t going to be here 100 years later,” Pepper Henry said. “They wanted to collect and preserve the objects but they didn’t care about us as people. They didn’t care about preserving us. In fact, they tried to eradicate us in many different ways.”
Continuum: The not-so-vanishing race
The third section of the exhibit is titled Continuum, representing the continuation of Native American culture. Visitors again are met with vivid colors, this time those of dusk.
In designing the exhibit, collections manager Hallie Winter, Osage and Oglala Lakota, said the goal was to have the most beautiful setting for the objects to come home to. The colors that appear just before sunrise and just after sunset seemed fitting, she said.
“We just wanted to remind them of the journey that they’ve been on,” Winter said. “And hopefully they find a home where they can rest for a while, and get to know other people again. ... It’s really wonderful to be able to reconnect them with their tribal communities.”
If the WINIKO exhibit were to be viewed from above, it would look like an infinity symbol. That was purposeful, Pepper Henry said, to represent that Native culture is still alive and well despite all attempts to eliminate it.
Pepper Henry and the curatorial team hopes visitors leave with the impression that they saw more than just objects behind glass. Many tribes believe that from the time an object is created, it is given life by its creator and those who use it, containing the essence of those people.
“We call them objects, because it’s just easier for the broader public to understand,” Pepper Henry said. “But really, they’re our friends and our relatives, if we talk about it from a native context.”