INDIANAPOLIS ? George Custer’s defeat at Greasy Grass Creek doesn’t much impress the woodland Indians who give this state and city their name. In the 18th century, the Miami Confederacy under Little Turtle took on U.S. armies four times the size of Custer’s force and wiped them out twice.
The third campaign, with Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne, didn’t end as well for the Miami and their allies, and for a long time Indiana devoted itself to becoming Indian-free. That trend is reversing as of June 22 at this city’s famed Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. On the weekend that also features the museum’s 10th anniversary Indian Market, the Eiteljorg is opening a new gallery Mihtohseenionki (The People’s Place) devoted to the natives of its region.
The reinstallation will feature not only the historic collection but also contemporary native art and living demonstrations by descendants of the region’s tribes.
“Allowing Native American artist and crafts people to come into the exhibit area and share one on one with the public will only serve to strengthen the living aspect of Native Americans today,” said Daryl Baldwin, Miami Nation, a consultant to the gallery.
“Tying the physical past with the physical present sends a powerful message that Native People are still a living, thriving, yet ever-changing people.”
Baldwin, a linguist specializing in the Miami dialect of Algonquian, is director of the Myaamia Project at Miami University in Ohio.
In planning the gallery, the Eiteljorg set up a Native American Regional Advisory Group in 2000, drawn from descendants of the Indiana Woodlands tribes, primarily the Miami, Delaware and Potawatomi.
Although still young, group member Scott Shoemaker, Miami Nation of Indiana, is vividly aware of the hard past of the still on-going struggle to preserve the Miami presence in its homeland.
“I was talking to my grandpa one day about some old pictures that we had,” he told Eiteljorg officials last year, “and I asked him why we don’t wear [our traditional] clothing anymore. And grandpa said, ‘Oh, we had to sell a lot of it for our lawyers’ fees.’”
Shoemaker, who works as a landscape architect in Chicago, is also a ribbonwork artist and will donate a pair of traditionally decorated moccasins to the exhibit.
The advisory group also includes Carolyn Knauff, a member of the Miami Nation of Indiana tribal council and cultural traditions committee, John Warren, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, a teacher who is former cultural program director of his band’s Community Development Office in Dowagiac, Mich., and Don Secondine, Delaware.
Secondine, descended from Delaware War Chief James Suwaunock of the early 19th century, works in silver and runs the trading post at Sauder Village in Archibold, Ohio. He will display and demonstrate his silverwork at the gallery, along with a knobbed war club owned by Chief Suwaunock and probably carried in the 1833 war between the Delaware and the Pawnee and the 1839 Seminole War.
Other demonstrators will include Penny Bishop, Citizen Band of Potawatomi Indians, a maker of “wearing blankets,” and John Pigeon, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, who crafts baskets from black ash trees.
“The reason I do a lot of the traditional arts is to keep them alive,” Pigeon said. “As Anishinabe people, we try to always think of seven generations. Those seven generations include my grandfather’s grandfather all the way to my grandchildren’s grandchildren. By making baskets or keeping rituals and ceremonies alive, we’re able to give something to our grandchildren’s grandchildren.”
Bishop freely admits to using a sewing machine for her traditional work. She says that Indian craftsmen have always embraced new tools. “My grandmother would have loved Velcro,” she said. “It would have made things so much easier.”
The installation carries “many subtle messages,” said Baldwin. “One message in particular touches on modern efforts to restore, and in some cases reclaim, traditional languages and cultures through the use of modern technology.”
John Vausandall, president of the Eiteljorg, said the gallery broke new ground. “Part of our mission is to inspire an understanding of the art, culture and history of the indigenous peoples of North America. We can’t do this by presenting artifacts alone. With this new gallery, our visitors will walk away with an understanding of how Native peoples used to live and how they continue to live today.”
The Indian Market June 22 and 23 shows the contemporary aspect in its juried arts competition drawing on 126 artists from more than 50 tribes. Members of the Regional Advisory group and artists featured in the new gallery will make demonstrations and Katrina Mitten, a direct descendant of Little Turtle, will tell the story of the Miami. The event, presented by SBC Ameritech, is the largest sale of Indian art in the Midwest.
