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VOICE ONE:
I’m Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember withEXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about how the newNational Museum of the American Indian is educating the public.
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VOICE ONE:
A large group of school children waits outside the doors of thenew museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. They are loudlytalking and laughing with their friends while they wait. Then thedoors to the National Museum of the American Indian open.
The young students move past thesecurity guards and walk around a metal wall. Suddenly they are veryquiet. They are standing in a huge round space that is the center ofthe new building. Light from the sky pours in through a glassopening almost forty meters above them.
This is a space that quiets people. It expresses the AmericanIndian respect for how the sky and the earth join to create thenative universe. The sudden silence of the students is evidence theyhave begun to learn something about American Indians’ culture andbeliefs. That is the goal of the new museum.
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The National Museum of the American Indian opened Septembertwenty-first with a week-long celebration. On opening day, more thaneighty thousand people gathered on the Mall to celebrate. Abouttwenty-five thousand American Indians in their traditional clothesmarched in the colorful Native Nations Procession. They representedfive hundred tribes and Native communities from northern Canada toas far south as Chile in South America.
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Congress created the NMAI as part of the Smithsonian Institutionin nineteen eighty-nine. Planning began the next year to create thefirst national museum to honor Native Americans.
W. Richard West, a SouthernCheyenne, has been the director of the museum since nineteen ninety.Mister West explains that Native Americans have had a continuingpart in developing the design and goals of the museum and what itshould show the public. Meetings were held for years with hundredsof Native people from North, Central and South America. They saidthat this museum should be different from other museums. They wantedthe building to connect to the earth and its surroundings so itlooked like it belongs on Indian land. And they urged that thevoices and ideas of Native people be heard in all the displays andprograms.
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Their advice has been followed. The design of the building andits surroundings show its connection to nature. Colors, materialsand forms that are found in American Indian lands are used outsideand inside the building. Throughout the museum, the voices of Nativepeople describe their world.
Mister West says the museum was created to be a center forlearning about the history and cultures of the native peoples of theAmericas. He hopes visitors will leave the museum experience knowingthat Indians are not just a part of history.
VOICE ONE:
The National Museum of the American Indian has about eighthundred thousand objects in its collection. Most of them werecollected by one man, American businessman George Gustav Heye(high). He spent the first fifty years of the last century gatheringall kinds of American Indian objects that have great artistic,historic and cultural meaning.
The collection now is in three different buildings. Some of theobjects are shown in the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City.Most of the collection is kept in the Cultural Resources Center inSuitland, Maryland, which opened in nineteen ninety-eight. This isalso where people can do research.
The new museum in Washington, D.C. has about eight thousandobjects in its exhibits. It also has space for educationalactivities, ceremonies and performances.
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Representatives of Native communities helped develop the threemain exhibit areas in the new museum. One area is called OurUniverses: Traditional Knowledge Shapes Our World. It shows thespiritual links between people and the natural world. And it showshow these links are honored in many different ceremonies throughoutthe year.
Eight Native communities are represented in the Our Universesarea. Tessie Naranjo helped choose the objects and the theme of theSanta Clara Pueblo exhibit.
Mizz Naranjo says the goal is to help visitors understand how theSanta Clara people look at life. This is done, she explains, throughstorytelling, which is used throughout the museum. All tribalstories have a teaching purpose, she says. Stories express thevalues of each Native community and the way community members areconnected to the universe.
So the Santa Clara exhibit tells about the importance of water,maize, and the four sacred mountains that surround the reservationin New Mexico. Visitors learn how young people in Santa Clara aretaught to listen to older people and to honor the land.
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Another major exhibit area is called Our Peoples: Giving Voice toOur Histories. It explores events that have shaped the lives ofNative Americans since Europeans arrived in fourteen ninety-two. Itshows how American Indians have struggled to save their traditions.
The third exhibit area is called Our Lives: Contemporary Life andIdentities. It tries to answer the question of what is an AmericanIndian. Visitors see objects, pictures, and films and hear spokenwords. They learn about the difficulties native peoples face tosurvive economically, save their languages, and keep their cultureand arts alive.
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Genevieve Simermeyer, a member of the Osage tribe, is the schoolprograms coordinator for the museum. She says the museum educationoffice has developed three programs for different age groups ofschool children. Nine Native Americans act as tour guides orcultural interpreters. They meet school groups in the large openspace. Then they take the students through different areas of themuseum. They explain about some of the exhibits and answerquestions.
Before a group of school children visits the museum, theirteacher receives materials to help prepare them. The youngestchildren from ages five to eight explore the idea of old things andnew things. At the museum they discover links between the past andpresent in American Indian life.
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For groups of school children nine to eleven years old, the visitto the museum is about the cultural values of Native Americans. Theyexplore how American Indians have dealt with change. Older childrenlearn how modern issues such as borders and treaties have affectedthe culture, language and traditions of native peoples.
Mizz Simermeyer says the guided tours for school children are sopopular they are already filled through May. But school groups canvisit the museum without a guide. There are teaching materials tohelp them prepare for the visit.
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Storytelling takes place throughout the museum. There are shortfilms that tell American Indian stories. Voices in some of the someexhibits tell stories that explain native beliefs. The culturalinterpreters also tell stories.
Adults and children also enjoy the hands-on parts of the museum.Computer games and instructional devices that provide learningexperiences are very popular. So are teaching boxes that containobjects that visitors can touch. For people who cannot get to themuseum, education materials can be found on the Internet atAmericanIndian.si.edu.
Amy Drapeau (drah-poe) is a spokesperson for the National Museumof the American Indian. She says the education program helps thegeneral public understand that American Indians are not just fromthe past and are not all the same. They live in many differentplaces. They speak hundreds of different languages. And theirtraditions are very different.
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Children who visit the museum seem to enjoy what they learn. Youcan hear their excited comments as they make discoveries forthemselves. “Wow.” “Come look at this!” “I did not know that.”
Adults learn, too. A woman from Silver Spring, Maryland, says shelearned that present day Native Americans still have traditions theyknow and value. She says that made her think about her own familytraditions and what has happened to them. “The Museum of theAmerican Indian,” she says ” is a powerful place.”
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This program was written by Marilyn Christiano. It was producedby Mario Ritter. I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONSin VOA Special English.