W. Richard West, Cheyenne and Arapaho, is founding director of the National
Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), whose Washington, D.C. site will open
this September. A graduate of Stanford law school, West served as counsel
to numerous Indian tribes in federal, state and tribal courts before his
appointment as NMAI director in 1990. He currently serves on several
boards, including the National Parks and Conservation Association, the
National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the American Indian Resources
Institute. Recently, Indian Country Today spoke with West about NMAI’s
mission, internal governance, exhibition content, and repatriation policy.

Indian Country Today: On the NMAI Web site, the museum is heralded as a
“symbol of reconciliation.” Reconciliation for whom and over what?

Richard West: On one level the reconciliation is of Native peoples with
their own past, which has been extremely difficult and has been anything
but picturesque history in lots of ways. And this institution is giving
[Native people] a legitimate sense of self, cultural selfhood, if you will.
It’s not some kind of mindless affirmation; it’s a deeper understanding of
exactly what the nature of our own cultural experience in history is, in
ways that I think will demonstrate the vast contributions that Native
people have made to what anybody calls “civilization” in this hemisphere.

The other reconciliation is of a different kind, but it still is
reconciliation. There’s a respect in which, since the beginning of history
in this country, there has also been a lack of reconciliation between
Native and non-Native. And I think that the groundwork for a reconciliation
in that set of circumstances begins with everybody’s more complete
understanding of the Native place in history.

ICT: In the sense of exposing a history of injustice and focusing on a
single ethnic group, the museum that the NMAI would most seem to resemble
in Washington is the Holocaust Museum. How will the two institutions be
different?

RW: In my view, that similarity is virtually only on the face of it. The
Holocaust Museum, as quite properly it should be considering its origins
and its charter, is about a very singular and terrible moment in time – the
Holocaust as it related to Jews during the period around World War II.

This museum does indeed encompass periods of history that are, in
historical impact, highly akin to the Holocaust for Jews. The fact is there
was a holocaust in this hemisphere that resulted in catastrophic
demographic impact alone. I mean, within the period of probably two
generations, the demographics in this hemisphere had changed so
dramatically that probably no more than 25 percent to a third of those who
originally had been here were still here. So we know holocaust in this
hemisphere as Native Americans.

But I would like to emphasize what the NMAI is about and the respect in
which it differs somewhat from the Holocaust Museum…. Looking at the
period between 1491 and now is a tiny fraction of the length and tenure of
our cultural experience in this hemisphere. It’s no more than 5 percent,
even if you think we have been here only 20,000 years – and some continue
to push that date back. That’s still a tiny fraction of our presence in
this hemisphere, and the fact is that all through that period … Native
peoples have continued to survive culturally and indeed, in certain
periods, to thrive culturally and to make immense contributions in art and
numerous aspects of culture to what we all define as civilization. So I’m
very respectful of the fact that we need to address certain periods of
Native history that are tough and ugly, and we need to do it forthrightly
and with authority and with authenticity. And we will. By the same token,
I’ve always been the first to emphasize, as the director of the
institution, that that is not the exclusive or sole focus of the NMAI. We
are not about that kind of singularity of historical time or period. We’re
about the expanse, the continuum of the Native cultural experience in this
hemisphere.

ICT: The enabling legislation for the museum said the Board of Trustees
will consist of 23 members, of whom 12 must be Native people, plus the
Smithsonian secretary and his designate.

RW: They wanted Natives to be one more than half the number on the board,
apart from the secretary and the secretary designate. ICT: What about the
fact that Natives make up one less than half in terms of the total
25-member board?

RW: Well, I wasn’t around when the legislation was passed. It’s never
really been an issue, and frankly, I would say that in many periods of time
we have had more than 12 Native people on the board, especially if you are
counting people of Native descent from outside the U.S. who cannot be
counted for purposes of that legislative calculation. For awhile, Gerald
McMaster [Plains Cree, Deputy Assistant Director for Cultural Resources],
for example, was a member of the Board of Trustees. Nobody doubts he’s
First Nations from Canada, but because of the way the legislation defines
the term “American Indian” or “Native American,” he didn’t count.

ICT: So we’re talking about 12 Native people from the United States.

RW: Twelve people who satisfy the definition of Native American in the
United States. That definition is defined by statute, mostly law that sits
in the BIA statutes and regulations.

ICT: Let’s move on to the exhibitions. Did you have anything to do with
vetting the exhibit scripts?

RW: The director always has to vet the exhibits finally.

ICT: Have you been involved with the scripts for some time, or are you
coming in at the end of the process?

RW: The exhibitions come out of a very lengthy process that actually began
when I first got here in the early 1990s. At the time we were selecting
which communities might best be collaborated with in connection with the
exhibitions. I was part of that process, as you might expect. And then as
we’ve gone on down the road, talking about design as well as curation of
those exhibitions through scripts and physical design, I’ve been involved
in all that, too.

ICT: It is a wonderful collection of communities.

RW: We wanted there to be diversity, which there is. We’re well represented
from all quarters of the hemisphere. That’s very important to me because
the collection has that kind of diversity in it, and we’ve always thought
of ourselves as a hemispheric institution, notwithstanding our name. We’re
not just an institution of Native people in the U.S., in my own view.

ICT: You mentioned the Indian holocaust earlier. Given the charged
political atmosphere at the Smithsonian, especially after the Enola Gay
flap, will it be difficult to celebrate Native cultures at the same time
you tell some awful stories that might make some people uncomfortable?

RW: You cannot have been at the Smithsonian over the past decade and not be
sensitive to those issues. By the same token, they have never been our
exclusive guidepost in this. We are sensitive to such issues; we want to be
aware of those things which may cause people some difficulty or question.
But we’re not going to skirt something on that basis alone. We may try to
go two extra steps to explicate ourselves or to indicate how we got to
where we are on a particular issue or matter. But we’re not going to avoid
it for that reason.

I also would say that there is a respect in which the fundamental nature of
the treatment of Native peoples and communities in this country
historically is a subject about which most people have a similar
conclusion. You have to go some distance to find the person who will look
you straight in the eye and tell you American Indians have nothing to
complain about with respect to their treatment. And what I’m saying,
without trying to brush away the idea that there will be issues here with
which we’ll have to deal, is that there is that preponderance of viewpoint,
I think, which gives Native people a little more latitude in this regard.

ICT: Are there certain words in the exhibit text you’ve tried to stay away
from?

RW: Again, it’s not that we haven’t discussed some of those words, but it’s
not been so much from the standpoint of “Are they politically charged, and
therefore should they be or not be in these exhibitions?” The inquiry is
always “Does the word really advance the point we’re making?” Or “does it
lend itself to the discourse that should occur on this subject?” And one of
the great beauties of the Holocaust Museum, since you raised that
institution, for which I have the greatest admiration, is that if you look
at their exhibition presentation, there’s very little hyperbole, very
little editorializing. It is basically a presentation of certain kinds of
data and information that people are then left to decipher for themselves.
And I think that’s a very healthy approach. I have urged in our case that
we attempt to do things that are similar in that regard.

ICT: Let’s take an example: Will the word “genocide” be used?

RW: I can’t recall off the top of my head if it’s used or not. If it were,
it would probably be in the exhibit “Our Peoples.” Certainly it’s hard to
think of certain parts of that historical experience and not have the word
come to mind, but again it would be the question, “Is it the word we would
want to use as a matter of the story we’re trying to tell that is the most
useful from our standpoint in raising an issue and positing an issue and
talking about it?”