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| - Firstly, hat's off to Jenn H. who had the cojones to give this place a lousy review without also coming off as insensitive.
The story of the various Native American tribes is an incredibly solemn one that is all too often glazed over in your average grade school American History course. I was blissfully unaware of it until my wife decided to dedicate the rest of her life to studying indigenous cultures and schooled me on the following - For 200 years, Native Americans were seen as uncivilized beasts in need of strict re-education to meet the white man's version of civility. Not until the 1960's (and as recently as 1990 with the passage of several federal laws including the Native American Languages Act) has the United States finally reversed course and decided to protect the various Native American cultures. Sad, but true, and something your average American probably doesn't know and likely doesn't want to know or care to know.
Thankfully there are places like the Heard Museum which does a brilliant job of telling the story of many of the tribes that were located in the Southwest. I feel it is unduly categorized as an "Art Museum" by many instead of an "American History" museum. Yes, you get the art - in the form of pottery and jewelry and Kachina - but you also get the traditional clothing, the traditional cooking, the language component, and most importantly the history lesson. If you leave here thinking, "that was just a bunch of pottery and dolls" then you've totally missed the point.
The first floor of the museum has a great flow to it with each section dedicated to a different tribe. Obviously there are many similarities, but the most interesting things are the subtle differences between the tribes. It also has changing exhibits on the second floor - when I was there it featured a wonderful exhibit on modern Native American art (sculpture and paintings and jewelry). There is also a heart-wrenching exhibit on the horrific boarding schools the children were forced to attend, often far from their homes and at extremely young ages, to strip them of their cultural heritage. My favorite part has to be the hands-on exhibit, likely meant for children but I couldn't keep away from it. So what if I'm pushing over a 5 year old to get a pipe cleaner and tissue paper to make a flower? There is even a section of the museum dedicated to other non-American indigenous art and garb.
What an excellent excellent museum. You leave much more informed and with a necessary touch of white guilt.
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