Click to see more collection highlights

Collection Highlights

The creation of the Smithsonian’s strikingly original National Museum of the American Indian began with a series of conversations with Native cultural and community leaders from throughout the Americas about their hopes for the new museum. Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw), an architect on the design team, remembers the consultations in Vancouver, British Columbia: “There were perhaps a hundred people there. One Inuit elder, a woman, said, ‘You, designers: we’re going to be watching you. And we want some of us in that building.” We heard that a number of times in different consultations: ‘We want some of us in that building.’”

In Spirit of a Native Place: Building the National Museum of the American Indian, ten people who played key roles in envisioning the museum write about how they sought to bring the experiences, achievements, and values of Native America to the Museum on the National Mall. Edited by Native American architect Duane Blue Spruce (Laguna and San Juan Pueblo) and illustrated with photographs of objects from the collections, archival and contemporary images of Native life, and beautiful new architectural photography, these graceful, personal remembrances present an introduction to the museum and its mission, and serve as a wonderful keepsake for museum members and visitors.
In “As Long as We Keep Dancing,” the essay at the heart of the book, NMAI Founding Director W. Richard West, Jr. (Southern Cheyenne), writes about growing up in Oklahoma, and about the persistence of Native cultures. In “The Way of the People,” George Horse Capture (A’aninin) recaptures the excitement of the museum’s early consultations and describes how they continue to guide the NMAI’s work. Architect Johnpaul Jones, ethnobotanist Donna House (Navajo/Oneida), and artist Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi) discuss the Native symbols and concepts that inspired the architecture of the museum on the National Mall, and describe how they set about creating a Native place in the middle of the nation’s capital.
In the book’s other chapters, curator Mary Jane Lenz and Heye Center Director John Haworth (Cherokee) explore the museum’s origins and its contributions to one of the world’s great cities—New York. ), and writer Liz Hill (Red Lake Band of Chippewa) follows the collections from the MAI Research Branch in the Bronx to their new home at the Cultural Resources Center. In the concluding piece, NMAI Deputy Director Douglas E. Evelyn traces the history of the National Mall and celebrates its new role as a place of reconciliation.

192 pp.; 100 ill.; 8 x 10 in.
Published by NMAI with the National Geographic Society 1994

About the Book
Foods of the Americas: Native Foods and Traditions

For many American Indians, food is more than sustenance—it is also of vital cultural significance. Salmon, buffalo, berries, acorns, quinoa, wild rice, tomatoes, chocolate, and especially corn—where these indigenous staples flourish, they have become a central part of Native American ceremonies and creation stories.

Celebrating the amazing diversity of the original foods of North, Central, and South America, Foods of the Americas highlights indigenous ingredients, traditional recipes, and contemporary recipes with ancient roots. Written by chef Fernando Divina and his wife Marlene Divina (who is of Chippewa, Cree, and Assiniboine heritage), Foods of the Americas includes 140 modern recipes representing tribes and communities from all regions of the Americas.

Some of the specialties are: *fry bread *turkey with Oaxacan black mole *wild rice and corn fritters *venison with juniper and wild huckleberry sauce *Chilean-style avocado and shrimp salad.

To complement the recipes, Foods of the Americas features nine illustrated intimate essays by American Indian writers who offer personal insights into a variety of indigenous food traditions. With enticing food photography and images from the museum’s collection, Foods of the Americas is not only an innovative tribute to the foods of the Western Hemisphere but also a testament to the Native contribution to American cuisine.

224 pp.; 65 ill. (45 color, 20 B/W); 8-3/4 x 10-3/4
Published by NMAI in association with Ten Speed Press 2004

Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser accompanies a major inaugural exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., that showcases magnificent paintings, drawings, and sculptures by these two highly acclaimed artists.

In this groundbreaking, beautifully illustrated book, edited by artist and NMAI curator Truman T. Lowe (Ho-Chunk), distinguished Native American writers and scholars add a rich new dimension to published accounts of Native American art. Essays by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), poet and artist Gail Tremblay (Onondaga/Mi’kmaq), and writer and critic Gerald Vizenor (Chippewa), winner of an American Book Award, offer a fascinating exploration of Morrison’s and Houser’s work in the context of contemporary art, Native American art history, and cultural identity.
George Morrison (Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, 1919–2000) and Allan Houser (Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache, 1914–1994) shattered expectations for Native art, and paved the way for successive generations to experiment with a wide array of styles and techniques. Born in a small Chippewa community in Minnesota, Morrison traveled and studied in New York City and Europe during an extraordinarily creative period in 20th-century art. He emerged triumphantly as both a major American artist and an Indian artist. Often described as an abstract expressionist, Morrison developed, in such celebrated series as his Horizon paintings, a non-figurative visual language.

Sculptor and painter Allan Houser also forged a unique path that redefined the way art by Native Americans is viewed and understood. The work of this prominent 20th-century artist has appeared in important exhibitions in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and his monumental bronze “Offering of the Sacred Pipe,” installed at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York in 1985, has become a worldwide symbol of peace.

Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser restores these seminal figures to their rightful place among the leading artists of their time.

128 pp.; 76 ill. (54 color 22 duotone); 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 in.
Published by NMAI in association with University of Washington Press, 2004

About the Book
Native Universe: Voices of Indian America

This magnificent celebration of Native American cultures and civilizations, published to mark the historic opening of NMAI on the National Mall, has already been praised as a “landmark” book. Native Universe: Voices of Indian America combines a wide-ranging and engrossing text by many of our foremost Indian scholars, writers, and leaders with a spectacular collection of illustrations showcasing the art and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic to Patagonia, and from ancient times to the 21st century.

Co-edited by NMAI’s Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree and member of the Siksika Nation) and Clifford E. Trafzer, of Wyandot descent and a professor of history and director of Native American Studies at the University of California, Riverside, Native Universe complements the themes of the museum’s inaugural exhibitions and offers readers a new, deeper understanding of Native philosophies, histories, and identities. Featuring insightful and evocative essays by such distinguished Native Americans as Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee), Victor Montejo (Maya), and many more, Native Universe reveals the rich heritage and true diversity of the Indian Americas. In stunning visual counterpoint, 300 full-color illustrations depict wondrous examples of indigenous cultures, from dramatic ceremonial masks to intricate baskets and exquisite beadwork, that speak of the historical experience of Native peoples throughout the hemisphere and attest to their vitality today. Here too are compelling photographs that depict the full range of Native life, from vibrant images of powwow dancing to the concentration of an artist at work, as well as contemporary Indian art that melds long-established themes with a thoroughly modern sensibility.

Colorful and comprehensive, at once spiritual and spirited, Native Universe is a rich, rewarding tribute to the diverse, often defiant, always dramatic legacy of the first peoples of the Americas—and a long-overdue acknowledgment of their rightful place in the past, present, and future of this hemisphere.
Recent reviews of NU

320 pp.; 300 ill.; 9 x 12 in. Published by NMAI in association with the National Geographic Society, 2004

This stunning full-color book, published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, celebrates the rich aesthetic traditions of North American Indians through the presentation of objects of exceptional beauty and cultural significance from this extraordinary private collection. Co-edited by Bruce Bernstein and Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree and member of the Siksika Nation), who contributed a joint introduction and essay, the book also includes essays by noted writers Donald Kuspit and Margaret Dubin.

272 pp.; 250 ill. (225 color); 10 x 12 in.
Published by NMAI in association with University of Washington Press, 2004