Indigenous stories of life and landscapes

New exhibit focuses on tribal communities’ past and present

2024-04-14 - By Whitney Pipkin and Lauren Hines Acosta

Tucked into the back of the Library of Virginia is a small exhibit with a pretty high aim: to help the state’s tribal communities tell the stories of their present-day lives.

“Indigenous Perspectives” focuses on the stories of Indigenous people after the arrival of Europeans, tracing a history that was nearly erased at several turns. It also focuses on what present-day life is like for the communities that have remained and how tribal members want their stories to be told.

In video interviews included in the exhibit, Chief Steve Adkins of the Chickahominy Tribe explains why it’s important for him to identify as an American Indian and not simply as a person of color.

“I don’t want people to be colorblind,” he said. “I want people to look at me and respect me for the differences I bring to

the table while understanding the commonalities that exist.”

The library, in Richmond, began collecting documents for this exhibition after starting a conversation with tribal representatives about three years ago. The staff wanted to know how to

better educate teachers about the history of Indigenous people.

Ashley Craig, community engagement and partnership specialist for the library, created a “monstrous” spreadsheet with 54 tabs, and counting, to keep track of the materials in the institution’s

archives.

“We have over 130 million printed resources and items in our collection that span from the Colonial period up until modern day,” she said. These letters, artifacts and court documents demonstrated that tribes in the

state “were active, writing letters to the governor, going to court, writing legislative petitions.”

Many of these documents have become vital to tribal leaders in recent years to demonstrate their historical presence to receive federal and state recognition. There are 11 tribes in Virginia

recognized by the state or federal government today, many of them acknowledged as recently as 2018 under the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act.

Library staff then reached out to tribal leaders to ask if this was a story they were interested in telling, for their sake and the sake of the broader public.

“I think it was good for us to listen, rather than to tell,” said Barbara C. Batson, exhibit coordinator at the Library of Virginia.

The centerpiece of the exhibit, which runs through mid-August, is a series of videos featuring tribal members telling their stories.

The longest focuses on what it means to have and maintain a tribal identity across time and cultures.

Several videos can also be viewed on the Library of Virginia’s website with a library card.

Many of the maps and documents on display are from the archives and are accompanied by loaned artifacts from the tribes. Tribal members helped develop the language interpreting each item on display as well.

For example, one photo from the archives was labeled as depicting a Pamunkey powwow.

But when Chickahominy first assistant chief Wayne Adkins saw the photo, he said, “Well, he’s Chickahominy and he’s Chickahominy and he’s Chickahominy,” suggesting that the people in the photo had been misidentified.

Library staff also learned that items that go in a medicine bag should not be displayed in the bag, which often has spiritual significance to the tribes when it is filled.

“Museums need to be talking to Indigenous communities to get their perspective on what (is in their) holdings,” Batson said. “For museums that have cultural artifacts, that’s really important.”

Some documents that the library had taken for granted, such as Capt. John Smith’s iconic map of the region, had unique layers of cultural significance to the tribes as well.

Smith’s map and journals, in particular, validated much of the oral history and village locations of tribes, like the Rappahannock, which had interacted with the explorer.

An interactive map in another corner of the exhibit shows the locations of several “Indian schools” that operated at various times, including one in Hampton Roads.

Those now-infamous schools were established starting in the 1800s to assimilate Indigenous children into the broader American culture by removing them from their families and cultures.

In 2021, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a Federal

Indian Boarding School Initiative to recognize the “troubled legacy” of the schools and to address their multigenerational impact.

The tribes’ efforts to maintain their culture and its ties to the landscape are included.

One case offers close-up views of powwow clothing, drums and a quilt. Another features a pot and a basket, each made from strips of tree bark and used for fishing and gathering food.

Brad Hatch, a Patawomeck tribal council member and exhibit collaborator, is one of two master eel pot makers in the tribe; he teaches that skill to others. He said the library’s exhibit showcases the tribes’ long history of land stewardship, despite the challenges presented by colonialism.

“Indigenous ways of understanding how we interact with the environment are starting to become seen more,” Hatch said.

“I think it’s worthwhile for scientists, legislators and others to perhaps listen to the people who have lived here and interacted with the landscape for over 15,000 years. I think we’ve got a thing or two that we could contribute to the discussion.”

The exhibit also invites visitors to learn more about

what it looks like for Indigenous people to maintain their culture.

“Something that one of the women in the tribe said to me, after viewing the interviews from the exhibit,” Hatch said, “was that it really underscored for her how important intertribal connections are to Virginia Indians.”

This story originally appeared April 2, 2024, on bayjournal.com.