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<P><B>State's tribes play big role in museum</B> <BR><B>Building to open on
National Mall</B>
<P><A
href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/16/MNG0T8PNMR1.DTL">http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/16/MNG0T8PNMR1.DTL</A>
<P>- Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau <BR>Thursday, September 16,
2004
<P>Washington --<STRONG> These are the headiest of days for the</STRONG>
<STRONG><FONT size=3>Hupas</FONT> of Humboldt <BR>County</STRONG> <STRONG>and
the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs and <BR>the 107 other
federally recognized Indian groups in California</STRONG>.
<P>The Smithsonian Institution opens its 18th museum Tuesday, the $219
<BR>million, 250,000-square-foot National Museum of the American Indian,
<BR>kicking things off with a procession of Native Americans in tribal garb
<BR>followed by a six-day First Americans Festival along the National Mall just
<BR>west of the U.S. Capitol.
<P>The Agua Caliente Band and the <STRONG>Hupas </STRONG>will play major roles
in the new <BR>museum, whose curved shape and craggy exterior of Kasota
dolomitic <BR>limestone from Minnesota stand in sharp contrast to the gray
granite Greek <BR>temples along the National Mall.
<P>"It's an historic, once-in-a-lifetime event,'' said Richard Milanovich,
<BR>chairman of the Agua Caliente tribe, a band that owns two thriving casinos,
a <BR>bank and a stake in a hotel and contributed $500,000 to help build the
<BR>museum. "For Indians in particular, it will bring out the self-esteem that's
<BR>been lacking in not being represented in such a place as the National
Mall,'' <BR>added Milanovich, whose ancestry is part Serbian American and part
<BR>American Indian.
<P>Milanovich, along with about 60 other members of his band and their
<BR>families, is attending the events in Washington this weekend.
<P>The museum opened Wednesday for a preview intended to show off a place
<BR>created in consultation with Indians from across the Western Hemisphere.
<BR>The discussions allowed the tribes a say about how to tell the world their
<BR>story of an ancient civilization that was almost destroyed by five centuries
of <BR>contact with Europeans but has persevered into the 21st century from
Chile <BR>north to the Arctic Circle.
<P>"This institution speaks to all of us about cultural memory, remembrance
<BR>and future,'' said W. Richard West Jr., the museum's director, who is also a
<BR>peace chief of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma and a 1971
<BR>Stanford law school graduate who now sits on the university's board of
<BR>trustees.
<P>Part of the Indians' pride in the museum, which is expected to draw about 4
<BR>million visitors a year, is that tribes and individuals raised $100 million
<BR>privately for its construction. The biggest donors, at $10 million each,
were <BR>three tribes from Connecticut and New York that have thrived in recent
<BR>years running big casinos. Other major donors include the William Randolph
<BR>Hearst Foundation, created by the founder of Hearst Corp., which publishes
<BR>The Chronicle.
<P>Another $119 million came from Congress.
<P>West has headed the museum for about 14 years. It was created by Congress
<BR>in 1989 to take over the collection of George Gustave Heye (pronounced
<BR>high), a wealthy New Yorker who more than a century ago started
<BR>assembling a collection of Indian artifacts that eventually grew to an
<BR>estimated 800,000 items. The new museum building occupies the last major
<BR>open space on the 200- acre mall that stretches west from the Capitol to the
<BR>Lincoln Memorial. West also oversees a smaller museum named for Heye in
<BR>lower Manhattan and a storage and research center in Suitland, Md.
<P>The new museum, which displays about 8,000 items, is physically striking.
<BR>Situated on a 4.5-acre piece of land nearest to the Capitol on the Mall, its
<BR>main entrance is from the east, in keeping with the tradition of many
tribes. <BR>Inside, the first thing visitors encounter is a vast atrium called
the Potomac, <BR>named not for the nearby river but for the source of the
river's name, the <BR>Piscataway word meaning "where the goods are brought in.''
<P>The circular Potomac, which will be used for performances of Indian dance
<BR>and music, sets the architectural theme for the entire building, which
doesn't <BR>contain a single straight line.
<P>Traditional Indian architecture scorned boxes, since the point of buildings
<BR>was to blur the line between the indoors and nature.
<P>The whole museum evokes American Indians' view of harmony with nature,
<BR>love of the land, and an abiding view of injustice at the hands of
governments <BR>across the hemisphere. It's certainly the only museum in
Washington with a <BR>small garden where corn, tobacco, beans and squash were
growing <BR>Wednesday.
<P><STRONG>On the museum's fourth and top floor in the Our Universe section is
an <BR>exhibit on three ceremonial dances of the Hupas -- a healing ceremony, a
<BR>plea for abundant harvests and a rite to ward off misfortune. </STRONG>
<P>The tribe chose its own curators to design the exhibit and explain the deeper
<BR>meaning to visitors from outside the tribe.
<P>At the museum's Mitsitam Native Food Cafe, the upcoming opening was
<BR>eagerly awaited by Faye Wright, a Klamath Modoc Indian from Klamath
<BR>Falls, Ore. , who moved across the continent just to work in the museum.
<P>"I'm thrilled to be here," said Wright, who landed a job as a cashier in the
<BR>restaurant. "This is a very big event for our people. I said I'll do
anything to <BR>work here.''
<P>Members of her tribe are coming to Washington for next Tuesday's grand
<BR>procession along the mall. "It's a small tribe,'' she said. "But the
Klamaths will <BR>be here for the parade, and I'll be marching right along with
them.''
<P>E-mail Edward Epstein at eepstein@sfchronicle.com.
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