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Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol 44, no. 3 (Winter 1996), p. 101-104
Beyond Repatriation:
(Or How the "Other" Became the "We")
by Richard West
As I prepared this address I reflected on a recent conversation between two very distinguished members of my board of trustees. The subject of their conversation was the museum's magnificent collection, which is, without qualification, the finest collection of Native materials of the Western Hemisphere in the entire world. These two trustees were as one in their enthusiasm for the collection, which they described with a passion that was almost palpable - its depth, its breadth, the sheer beauty of the materials in it.
As I listened to their conversation, it became equally clear to me that they also had truly, if not profoundly, divergent views about the museum's ultimate institutional role vis-a-vis the collection. The first trustee viewed the museum, primarily if not exclusively, as a repository for a collection that is, by anyone's definition, a national treasure. And that trustee also viewed the collection, in many respects, as an end in itself, to be preserved for the ages as a fitting national memorial to the vast cultural achievements of the Native peoples of this hemisphere.
The second trustee saw the collection far more as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself - an immensely important beginning point of cultural inquiry and interpretation. Those ends were several but can be summarized approximately in the following manner and not in any particular order: (1) to document the historic culture and, perhaps even more important, to preserve the living, contemporary culture of the Native peoples of this Hemisphere; (2) in accomplishing this mission, to use the collection as the basis of a unique and, in many respects, unprecedented collaboration and cooperation between the museum and Native community itself; and (3) in combination with both these missions, to employ the collection as a powerful vehicle for enlightening the entire world about the past, present, and yet-to-come cultural achievements of the Native peoples of the New World.
I realize that the two trustees' views of the collection and its use have much commonality, but I believe you also understand that their outlooks reflect an intrinsic tension. Although the conversation I have just recounted did occur, you probably have surmised by this point that I also am speaking metaphorically.
That exchange between our two trustees speaks volumes about a very real tension within the museum community and between the Native and museum communities regarding this nation's great collections of Native materials. The National Museum of the American Indian stands squarely at the center of that tension regarding the uses and dispositions of collections of Native materials. More important, the museum, because of its sheer institutional weight and visibility in our museum community, is constrained, in my view, to serve as a powerful and thoughtful catalyst for change and healing in resolving this tension. Thus, I would like to outline how the National Museum of the American Indian views these fundamental and admittedly difficult questions and where we are going with them.
The most obvious and often controversial manifestation of the tension I have just described is, indeed, the "R" word, repatriation. I always have deeply regretted that we did not heed the alarm of my friend and colleague, Nancy Lurie of the Milwaukee Public Museum, when, with respect to the issue of Indian human remains, she wrote a decade and a half ago:
What is needed, in my opinion, is the development of rational discussion between archaeologists and Indian people to indicate what archaeology does ... and how the archaeologists' findings can serve Indian people in clarifying knowledge of their history ... And archaeologists should consider the prevalent double standard that if Euroamerican bones are uncovered accidentally in forgotten graveyards, they are usually packed off for reburial in some local churchyard while Indian bones inevitably end up in archaeological laboratories and museums.
The rest, of course, is history and fairly unfortunate history at that. Dr. Lurie's "rational discussion," for the most part, did not occur, and the issue became increasingly politicized and highly polarized. As all of us well know, the Native community finally sought redress in the Congress and ultimately achieved there what it had been unable to accomplish in direct dealings with museums.
Without intending at all to be recriminatory and obviously with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I believe that our museum community, including the august institution that I now call home, brought much of this polarization on ourselves because, in candor, we stonewalled the issue when we should have been discussing it. We also miscalculated the utter dedication of the Native community to its position and were, in my personal view, probably far too protective for too long of the museum world as many of us then knew it.
Ironically, however, my purpose is not to discuss the relative merits of repatriation and certainly not to relitigate "who struck John" as between the museum and Native communities. As important as the issue of repatriation is, as complex as it will be, and as much of our time as it will consume over the next several years, I believe that we sometimes become so obsessed with it that we run the risk of missing the forest for the trees. In the end, repatriation, in my own mind, merely reflects and grows out of a number of far broader principles, those more fundamental winds of change that are blowing through our community and probably will alter it forever. I thus would like to focus on a number of those broad principles because it is these underlying philosophical tenets that actually drive the National Museum of the American Indian and make it such a powerful potential force for change.
If I could capture these principles in a single mission statement, it probably would be something like the following:
The mission of the National Museum of the American Indian is to interpret and represent, through multiple voices, including those of Natives themselves, all aspects of Native culture of the Western Hemisphere as living, dynamic cultural phenomena.
Let me now discuss these principles more specifically by parsing my hypothetical statement of mission.
The first of these principles goes to the living and dynamic nature of Native culture. I remember reading a passage in the introduction to James Clifford's seminal work Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art that captured my thought perfectly. Here is what he said:
Throughout the world indigenous populations have had to reckon with the forces of "progress" and "national" unification. The results have been both destructive and inventive. Many traditions, languages, cosmologies, and values are lost, some literally murdered; but much has simultaneously been invented and revived in complex, oppositional contexts. If the victims of progress and empire are weak, they are seldom passive. It used to be assumed, for example, that conversion to Christianity in Africa, Melanesia, Latin America, or even colonial Massachusetts would lead to the extinction of indigenous cultures rather than to their transformation. Something more ambiguous and historically complex has occurred, requiring that we perceive both the end of certain orders of diversity and the creation or translation of others. ...
In other words, stated more simply and less "ethnographically," we Native peoples of this hemisphere are still here, and our culture, always a dynamic phenomenon, continues to develop and evolve in significant and important ways.
The second principle goes to the intrinsic validity of that cultural experience or, to state the point another way, its equality with the cultural experiences of anyone else - Native peoples as the "we" instead of the forever "other." As Brian Durrans stated in his recent article entitled "The Future of the Other: Changing Culture on Display in Ethnographic Museums," which appeared in The Museum Time-Machine: Putting Cultures on Display:
Every contemporary community, whatever its way of life, and whether dominant or dominated, inherits a stake in the whole of human evolution. Whether fractured or continuous, exclusive or interwoven with that of other groups, the past development of all surviving societies has the same time-depth. Within that time, their responses to different cultural and environmental opportunities are as interesting for their unique qualities as for what they share in common. This does not mean that they meet the needs of their members equally well or are equally prepared to cope with current and future pressures; but it does mean they cannot be evaluated according to the idea of intrinsic "primitiveness."
The converse of this proposition is, of course, a rejection of that Euroamerican cultural precept - namely, America as a cultural "melting pot." As applied to the Native peoples of this hemisphere, the concept is historically inaccurate to begin with. If American history demonstrates anything, it is that Indian culture has not "melted" - even in the face of great "heat."
The final principle flows, in my own mind, quite logically from the first two. It is simply this: that our representation and interpretation of Native culture must be through multiple eyes and multiple voices, including, most emphatically, the eyes and voices of Natives themselves. I always have been puzzled that, although this proposition has seemed to me to be almost tautological, acting on it did not occur at all in museums for almost a century and even now occurs only sporadically.
These principles translate directly into a programmatic structure and vocabulary that already shape and mold our nascent program planning process at the National Museum of the American Indian, and I would like to discuss them briefly. First, we must approach, as our museum community rarely has before, the representation and interpretation of Native culture in the first person rather than the third-person voice. I want to expand the circle of "inclusion" for purposes of cultural commentary and interpretation.
In making this statement I also want to be very clear about what I am not suggesting. I have no desire to exclude entirely the third-person voice that to date largely has dominated interpretations of Native culture. I do not seek the imposition of a new "exclusivity" to replace the old one or the creation of today's political "correctness" to replace yesterday's now discredited one. What I am making is an utterly practical and not a political point, and it is this: all of us can benefit immensely by bringing to bear on our interpretations of this splendid cultural material the voices and insights of its makers and creators.
Second, at the National Museum of the American Indian, we must be sure that all those elements that make up Native culture are represented. In addition to the valid and worthy insights of the anthropologist and the ethnologist, who, historically, have served as our principal cultural interpreters, our view of Native culture must expand to embrace the many other elements that comprise culture by anyone's definition. This more expansive approach to cultural interpretations would go a tremendous distance in eliminating our status in museums as the "dead," the "studied," and the "primitive" rather than as full, living, contemporary members of humankind.
In making this point I think almost automatically of our arts (which, for me, may be partly genetic). The Native arts, including both the visual and the performing, so clearly, beautifully, and cogently reflect and document our culture, including its dynamism, and our humanity. The National Museum of the American Indian must be sure that the arts are reflected in all that it does - music, painting, sculpture, dance, and drama - and, I would emphasize, performed by some live bodies, which leads to my third point.
We must relinquish the static, nineteenth-century Eurocentric view of Indian culture to the extent that it remains current - the bronzed noble flying across the Great Plains in full regalia. And I say that as a Cheyenne, those lords of the Plains who got tremendous mileage out of that stereotype. That snapshot, however picturesque, can be profoundly misleading to contemporary museum audiences. Why? Because Indian culture is dynamic and not static. It is a continuum. It did not end in the nineteenth century. Its further development and evolution continue as I stand here this afternoon. The National Museum of the American Indian must represent and interpret Indian culture as the contemporary living and breathing phenomenon that it is - from its roots in a glorious pre-European-contact past to a difficult but vital present.
Finally, the National Museum of the American Indian has a very special responsibility to the descendants of those who created the incomparable objects in its collection. The museum must reach out to the Native community in service in ways that few museums have seen fit to do. Given the broad principles I have stated, we have a compelling obligation to make sure that the descendants of those who created the materials in our collection are able to draw upon the tremendous material and human resources of the museum in order to build their present-day communities and lives and to plan the viable, productive future they so richly deserve.
But in making this first point I want to be very clear about a second: support of the Native community in preserving culture is not some parochial and ethnocentric political sop to the Native community to atone for past cultural sins. It is nothing less than an effort to support and sustain a vital past and present element of this nation's great cultural diversity for the benefit of all of us, Native and non-Native alike. If that objective cannot be considered a legitimate aspiration of this national institution of culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, then I cannot imagine what should be.
So what does all of this mean for the museum and Native communities? For the museum community I believe that the National Museum of the American Indian, at least with respect to cultural institutions of its size and impact, will represent a sea change in the way museum business is done and the manner in which we relate to our various audiences and constituencies. And I have little doubt that, because we are the Smithsonian, we will have a substantial reinforcing effect on the winds of change that already are blowing throughout the museum community.
But I hasten to emphasize that this is not a development to be viewed with fear or consternation by the museum community. Notwithstanding some of the pyrotechnic rhetoric to the contrary, and speaking as a Native, I know that the Native community has no intention whatsoever of embarking on some kind of mindless dissipation of this nation's great collections of Native materials. We must recognize, however, that Native culture still exists and that certain kinds of materials, most specifically sacred and ceremonial objects, are essential to the continued existence and cultural prosperity of this segment of our national cultural life. This support of Native culture, however, also ultimately benefits non-Natives, since Native culture has so much to say and contribute to the knowledge and lives of non-Natives through cultural institutions such as museums.
To the Native community I say this: I believe that we have reached a watershed in our long-standing love-hate relationship with the museum community, and I strongly suggest that we rethink and reorder our future relationship with that community. Speaking frankly, we need to recognize that not all museum officials, including those "A" word folks, the anthropologists and archaeologists, are direct descendants of Lucifer and that crossing the portal of a museum need not always be viewed as hopping the boat for a cruise across the River Styx. Given some of the very fundamental changes I see occurring in the museum community, I think that our reception there is very likely to be different in the future. Without getting too swept away, I do not even rule out that it will be a very warm and hospitable reception.
And that could mean immense and immensely exciting developments for Native peoples. The collaborations and areas of cooperation are almost limitless in programming, training, and research. We not only have the opportunity for preserving our own culture, but also for adding our voices to the chorus of interpretation and representation of ourselves to others who do not know us or appreciate the cultural contributions we have made. Notwithstanding the occasional honest dissonant note, I feel passionately that the addition of our voices to this chorus will produce harmonies of which museums have not yet even dreamed.
I also see in all of this significant possibilities for reconciliation - cultural reconciliation in this case. The reconciliation of Native peoples with their often troubled and tortured past, seeing in that past, for perhaps the first time, the cultural grounding and elements of tradition that prepare us for a more hopeful and prosperous future. The reconciliation of Natives and non-Natives that flows almost naturally and inevitably from a profoundly deeper and broader understanding of Native peoples and their tremendous cultural contributions.
I was reflecting recently on a passage in the first draft of a future paper or speech that my Deputy Director for Public Program Planning, Elaine Gurian, had given me to read. It perhaps even grew out of the many philosophical conversations I have had with Elaine concerning the place of the National Museum of the American Indian in the grand sweep of the evolution of museums. In this particular case Elaine was talking about that "R" word again, repatriation, and this is what she said:
[T]he American Indian claims — in their persistence and in their assertion and reliance on [the] creation and prosecution of law — have been the most visible catalysts for the current industry-wide reappraisal of museums as social institutions. For this pressure, all of us, even in our most fearful and anxious states, should be grateful.
We will, I believe, learn more about museum possibilities in the next decade, thanks to the American Indian community, than we have learned in the previous several. And museums will become different in a way that will, in the future, seem logical and self-evident. I predict we will not be able to recreate what all the fuss was about.
I believe that Elaine is precisely correct. From a range that is so close to the events of which she speaks, it may be difficult for some here today to agree that "we will not be able to recreate what all the fuss was about." From the longer view, however, I have a confidence which approaches the serene that her prediction will prove absolutely prescient. And it is that long view which the National Museum of the American Indian, by history and perhaps destiny, is constrained to take. For us it is not an option. To the contrary, it is nothing less than a cultural imperative.
About the Author: W. Richard West, Jr., is the Founding Director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, a national institution of living culture devoted to the representation and interpretation, past, present, and future, of the indigenous cultures and peoples of the Western Hemisphere, including art, history, and language. A graduate of the Stanford University Law School, he is a member of several state Bars, Bar of the United States Supreme Court, and the American Indian Bar Association. Mr. West is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.
