Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life along the North Pacific Coast is on view at the Heye Center through July 20, 2008.

Fall Program Highlights LISTENING For an up-to-date listing of public programs throughout the year, please check the NMAI Calendar of Events at www.AmericanIndian.si.edu T O O U R CultureFest 2007 Red Sky Performance Holiday Art Market 2007 October 13 & 14 Raven Stole the Sun December 8 & 9 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. November 17, 2 p.m. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ANCESTORS Battery Park Diker Pavilion, Heye Center Heye Center Performing in the Heye A creature of impulse and More than 36 Native artists Center Rotunda at 12, 2, and curiosity, Raven creates a from throughout the Sophisticated in conception and execution, and 4 p.m. will be the Git-Hoan brilliant plan to steal the Americas —including several THE ART OF NATIvE LIFE ALONG LISTENING rich with symbolism, the house posts, masks, dance Dancers (Tshimshian), led stars, moon, and sun. This from the communities of the by David Boxley. Git- Hoan North Pacific Coast—will offer THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST regalia, and elaborately decorated boxes of the dance theatre presentation T O O U R means “People of the for children and adults puts their work for sale. North Pacific Coast have long been recognized as Salmon” in Tsimshian. a contemporary spin on a masterworks of art. Less well known are the unique traditional Tlingit story. ANCESTORS nations whose people made, and continue to make, these beautiful things. Here, in a series of community Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life along the North Pacific The Art self-portraits, representatives from eleven Native Coast, published by NMAI in association nations discuss the ways in which these master- of Native Life with National Geographic Books, pieces, as well as everyday tools and utensils from is available in the NMAI shops and along the the museum’s collections, connect them with their other bookstores, or online at North Pacific Coast forebears and enrich their world today. www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.

We have lived for hundreds of years The range of subjects the community curators surrounded by other nations. Yet discuss encompasses the rhythms of everyday life our masks are different, our songs among the Coast Salish; the significance of whaling are different, our stories are different. to the Makah; the four worlds of Nuu-chah-nulth These things were given to us at the beginning of time, and they cosmology; the sacredness and ceremony of have helped keep our culture alive. Kwakwa_ ka_´wakw life; the Heiltsuk Winter Ceremonial cycle; cultural revival among the Nuxalk; the spiritual — Harvey Mack, Alvin Mack, Grace Hans, unity of the Tsimshian world; Nisg_a´a survival and Lillian Siwallace, and Eva Mack (Nuxalk) George Gustav Heye Center For recorded information the reclamation of ancestral fisheries; concepts of One Bowling Green about exhibitions, museum Above: wisdom and healing among the Gitxsan; Haida singing New York, NY 10004 programs, and services, Tsimshian amilik (mask), and dance; and the marvelous wealth of the Tlingit. www.AmericanIndian.si.edu call 212 -514-3888. early 19th c. 3/4678 After being on view in New York, a core collection of George Gustav Heye Center Heye Center hours: 10 a.m. To become an NMAI Member, Cover: objects will travel to each of the eleven communities. Object photos by Kwakwaka’wakw welcome The pieces shown here were chosen to speak both to 5 p.m. every day, except call 1-800 -242 -NMAI [6624] Ernest Amoroso figure (detail), 19th c. December 25. Thursdays to or visit www. AmericanIndian.si.edu and Walter Larrimore 11/5244 to museum visitors and to the people back home, 8 p.m. Admission: free. The and click on Membership & Giving. Landscape photos by whose ancestors made them. museum is fully accessible. Cynthia Frankenburg and Roger Whiteside

© 2007 Smithsonian Institution Our tribes, known by ancient, magical names, Gatgyet, literally “the strength of the people,” We are qwidicca?aˇˇ 'tx,ˇ knowledgeable have lived on these lands for more than arises from a lineage’s history and place in the world. people with respect for ceremony, gracious 10,000 years, protected by natural barriers In ancient times, when an ancestor first acquired hosts, people who honor invitations, of ocean and mountains. In this beautiful place, a territory, a cane was sometimes touched to the generous with food. We are rich by measure our ancestors crafted elaborate institutions ground to signify the power of the lineage merging of how much we give, not by what we gain. and structures of rights and responsibilities with that of the land. based on kinship and history. — Maria Pascua, Janine Bowechop, — Lindsey Martin, Susan Marsden, and William White Rebekah Monette, and Meredith Parker (Makah) —Chief Robert Joseph (Kwakwaka_ _´wakw) (Tsimshian)

The lands, islands, and waterways from history Detailed narratives, formally recited at feasts, feasts Perhaps the best-known tradition of the trace the presence of lineages, clans, villages, and houses on North Pacific Coast is the potlatch. The very word “potlatch”— the Olympic Peninsula and Puget Sound in the the land back more than a hundred generations. The number a Chinook jargon catchall used to describe many different south to the Gulf of Alaska in the north, and west and diversity of Native languages in the region also speaks feasts—suggests the difficulty in summarizing the region’s to the long history of settlement. Commerce with ships from elaborate ceremonies. In the complex political and ceremonial to the peaks and glaciers of the Coast Mountains, Europe and Russia, and east across the mountains to Montana, life along the coast, feasts were, among other things, a way provide a wealth of resources. Particularly is reflected in Chinook trading jargon, whose dialects were the communities governed themselves and maintained civility with shared language along the coast in the 1800s and early 1900s. their neighbors. By reciting histories, chiefs stated their houses’ important are red and yellow cedar, which can With Contact came epidemics, as well as the appropria- rights and honors; guests signaled their consent by accepting be split into fibers and woven into cloth, as well tion of Native property by non -Natives. Smallpox, influenza, the host’s gifts. The host’s standing was raised by his generos- and other diseases against which the people of the region ity, and wealth was shared among the larger community. as carved and painted; salmon, which can be had no immunity reduced the Native population of the North In the late 19th and first half of the 20th century—to dried, canned, or, more recently, frozen, for use Pacific Coast from an estimated 185,000 in 1770 to fewer than control and, ostensibly, bring progress to Native communities— 35,000 in 1870. The recovery of these nations, their dedication American and Canadian government and church officials year-round; and oil made from the oolichan— to the preservation of their cultural inheritance, and their tried to undermine the foundation of tribal life by banning feasts the first fish to return to the northern rivers in assertion of treaty and territorial rights for future generations and other ceremonies. That they did not succeed is shown by testify to the strength of their identity as sovereign peoples. the vitality of the communities representing themselves here. the spring—a delicacy and valuable trade good. Proprietary crests, names, dances, and songs continue to be treasured along the North Pacific Coast. And potlatches, once hosted only by chiefs, today are given by many families, for age -old reasons, like celebrating a birth or marriage, and to honor modern -day achievements, such as a earning

The North Pacific Coast a graduate degree.

Above: Tlingit dance collar, Left: From top to bottom: Gitxsan watsx aatii’yasxw Nuxalk s7yulh ca. 1900. Makah model canoe and figures, Nuu-chah-nulth hat (spirit canoe curing aid), (kusiut mask in the form 21/859 ca. 1900. belonging to a woman 1870–1900. of a Thunder figure), Made by Young Doctor. of high status, 3/5017 ca. 1880. Haida hat with crest representing 6/8874 not dated. 19/838 a Dogfish, ca. 1890. 8068 Back cover: Made by Isabella Edenshaw; Nisga’a_ ladle with Right, from top: painted by Charles Edenshaw. Heiltsuk mask worn handle representing Cowichan Coast Salish spindle 9/8015 in the Clam Dance, the head of a crane, whorl with design suggesting ca. 1900. 1860–1900. a school of salmon, 9/2227 1/4278 early to mid 19th c. 15/8959