OKC museum highlights
A look inside at the best of Oklahoma City’s new First Americans Museum.
In the afternoon sunshine, the glassand-steel edifice near downtown Oklahoma City gleams like a beacon.
Staffers of the eagerly anticipated First Americans Museum hope the dazzling facade draws people from myriad walks of life — locals and out-of-towners, Natives and non-Natives, school groups and curious adults — to the prominently placed new landmark.
“Our location is literally at the crossroads of America: I-35 and I-40, and I-44 is not too far away. Over 200,000 cars drive right by us every single day in the summertime, about 125,000 in the wintertime. We couldn’t be at a better place,” said James Pepper Henry, the director and CEO of the museum and a member of the Kaw Nation.
Almost 40 years after it was initially envisioned, the long-awaited First Americans Museum opens Saturday with a two-day grand opening celebration featuring Native dancers and musicians, cultural demonstrations and more.
Designed and outfitted with input from all 39 tribes headquartered in Oklahoma, the $175 million, 175,000square-foot museum is expected to be a major tourist attraction and a significant addition to OKC’s cultural landscape.
“I think it is beautiful to have kind of modern indigenous architecture,” Pepper Henry said. “A lot of people want to pigeonhole us into the past. And we’re looking ahead, we’re looking at our future, not just looking behind.”
Here are 10 highlights of the new First Americans Museum:
1. The Hall of the People
For years, one of the few signs that construction had actually started on the museum was the curved white skeleton of what has finally been built into the Hall of the People. Looming 90 feet tall, that skeleton has been filled in with more than 800 panes of glistening glass.
The space can accommodate about 350 visitors seated for a banquet or 800 to 900 people standing for an event.
“The Hall of the People is a modern version ... of a Wichita grass Lodge. And the reason why we picked that particular structure is because the Wichitas, along with the Caddo and a few other tribes, are indigenous to Oklahoma,” Pepper Henry said. “We wanted to honor the original peoples of this land.”
2. ‘ Touch to Above’
An open hand suspended from a stainless steel arch, the outdoor sculpture “Touch to Above,” by Cherokee artists Demos Glass and Bill Glass Jr., provides a gateway for visitors.
“A closed hand would mean you’re not welcome, but an open hand means you are welcome here,” Pepper Henry said.
The cross symbol on the metal palm represents the four directions.
“What we’re saying is no matter where you’re from, no matter who you are, you are welcome here,” he said. “We wanted that to be the first thing people see.”
3. Origins Theater
The exterior of the 320-degree Origins Theater features a swirling design created by acclaimed Norman-based artist Jereldine “Jeri” Redcorn and was carefully constructed to resemble one of her Caddo pots.
Inside, the immersive environment showcases animated short films sharing the genesis stories of four tribes: the Caddo, Pawnee, Yuchi and Otoe-Missouria.
“We selected origin stories that broadly represent the tribes: Some came from the earth, some came from the sky, some came from the water,” said Ginny Underwood, the museum’s marketing and communications manager, who is Comanche.
She said visual and voiceover artists from the four tribes worked on the short films, with New York-based batwin + robin productions animating the illustrations.
4. Powwow Van
Another immersive attraction, the Powwow Van, entices visitors to hop inside and cruise the “Oklahoma Powwow Highway,” with photographs, video clips and text as a map.
“You take a tour of cultural events across the state,” Underwood said. “I think a lot of people have questions about different gatherings, and this is kind of an introduction to those experiences.”
5. The missing football
The mezzanine exhibition “WINIKO: Life of an Object” includes 144 items on long-term loan from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Many were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from tribes in Oklahoma.
“‘Winiko’ is a Caddo word that means the life in everything, even inanimate objects,” Pepper Henry said. “We’ve been reuniting families with these objects ... and we begin to understand that these aren’t just inanimate objects that are on display.”
In the case of the Shawnee p’thee’kawee, or football, it’s actually what’s not on display that’s important. The curatorial team initially planned to put one on view in a case of indigenous sporting goods between sticks for Cherokee stickball and pieces from a Caddo women’s hand game. But the p’thee’kawee is a ceremonial object that is meant to be destroyed after use.
“We consulted with the Shawnee nation, and they said it was a sacred object that shouldn’t be on display. So, we have the placement for it, but not the object,” Underwood said. “That speaks to our curatorial perspective ... and the care and respect that was put into the overall exhibitions.”
6. The restaurant
Classy and comfortable, the museum’s full-service restaurant overlooking the grounds will feature a rez-to-table menu with traditional recipes from Oklahoma’s 39 tribal nations. Potawatomi chef Loretta Barrett Oden, star of Emmy-winning PBS series “Seasoned with Spirit,” has been helping to develop the menu.
“People think of Native American food as Indian tacos and frybread. We call that post commodity. ... We will be developing a menu based on all traditional recipes, including bison, turkey, salmon, even shrimp,” Pepper Henry said.
“We’re sourcing directly from the tribes when we can. Of course, we’ll have a nice coffee bar as well, and we’re actually sourcing our coffee from a Native-owned coffee company.”
7. Xchange Theater
Visitors who go through Xchange entrance can enter the museum store, restaurant and Xchange Theater without paying admission. The latter is a 75-seat theater with wraparound 8K video screens.
The concept is a space for exchanges of cultures, languages and lifeways.
“We can get schoolkids in here and do storytelling. We can have dance demonstrations in here. We have cameras up here, and if somebody is doing a basketweaving demonstration, we can zoom in on their hands and put it up onscreen so people can see the detail,” Pepper Henry said.
“At night, we’ve got this incredible lighting system in here. ... We can turn it into a dance floor; we can put a small band in here. It’s a really great, flexible space for us. But the idea is for this place to come alive with programming — and this is all free in this part.”
8. The mound
One of the biggest features on the grounds is a mound made of 500,000 cubic yards of earth.
“It’s an homage to our ancestors that were here before us. One of the great civilizations of North America was right here in Oklahoma before the Europeans arrived, and that was the Spiro Mounds,” Pepper Henry said.
Although it won’t be ready in time for the grand opening, Underwood said the top of the mound will be paved and lighting and handrails added. People will be able to access the mound from outside or from the museum’s second floor and take a 45-minute walk all the way around the top.
9. The gift shop
About 80% of the stock lining the shelves and racks of the large, airy museum store was either made by Native artists or tribally owned and operated businesses, said store manager Tom Farris, who is Otoe-Missouri and Cherokee.
“The mission is to really make this a marketplace for Oklahoma artists to be able to sell work,” Farris said. “We worked with a number of artists to create signature, exclusive lines of jewelry and other products.”
The store features contemporary artwork by Cherokee potter Karin Walkingstick, Chickasaw bladesmith Daniel Worcester, Caddo, Delaware and Kickapoo beadwork artist Yonavea Hawkins and more.
Although the museum’s family discovery center won’t be ready for the grand opening, the gift shop offers a preview of the adorable animal guides who will eventually populate that popup book world.
10. The farewell
Ashes from the museum’s 2005 ground blessing are stowed in the calm, colorful final section of the first floor. With the cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco and sage on display as well as the tall screens that sometimes seem to plume with smoke, Underwood said the area is meant to call to mind a smudging ceremony for purifying or cleansing.
“We did some research and tried to come up with how do we send people off from this section of the museum, like a goodbye. And none of the tribes have a word for goodbye,” Underwood said.
“So, this is the section where it’s kind of a virtual smudging ... thanking people for coming and then inviting them back to see us again.”