[Senate Hearing 108-421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-421
STATUS OF THE COMPLETION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON STATUS OF THE COMPLETION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF
THE AMERICAN INDIAN
__________
MARCH 3, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC
92-458 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Vice Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico HARRY REID, Nevada
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
GORDON SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
Paul Moorehead, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Patricia M. Zell, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements:
Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado,
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 1
Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii, vice
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 2
Johnson, Jackie, executive director, National Congress of
American Indians........................................... 4
West, Rick, director, National Museum of the American Indian. 3
Appendix
Prepared statements:
Inouye, Hon. Daniel K., U.S. Senator from Hawaii, vice
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 11
Johnson, Jackie.............................................. 11
West, Rick................................................... 12
STATUS OF THE COMPLETION OF THE
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN
INDIAN
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to other business, at 10:15
a.m. in room 485, Senate Russell Building, Hon. Ben Nighthorse
Campbell (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Campbell, Inouye, and Murkowski.
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM
COLORADO, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
The Chairman. We will now turn to the oversight hearing on
the status of the National Museum of the American Indian, which
will be part of our Nation's Smithsonian Institutions. This
morning, the committee will hear from Rick West, who over the
past 14 years has done a magnificent job, in my opinion, as the
first director of this museum; and Jackie Johnson, executive
director of the National Congress of American Indians.
It is my understanding that the NCAI is working with the
museum on its celebrations surrounding the September opening of
the museum. We will be looking forward to hearing of the events
that are scheduled, too.
While in the House, I had the honor of working on this
bill. Senator Inouye was the Senate sponsor, and virtually
everyone knows that without his support and help, there simply
would not be a big beautiful building out there on the Mall. It
would still be just a flat piece of grass. I was on the House
side at that time and was given the honor to carry it on the
House side, so we have been colleagues in all of the years that
have passed, not only in getting it built, but raising the
money and doing all the things that have to be done to make
sure that that is going to actually open on time.
So on September 21, the NMAI will open its doors in a week-
long celebration leading millions of visitors to the location
on the National Mall. This beautiful building will include
800,000 objects drawn from indigenous cultures spanning the
entire western hemisphere from the Arctic Circle of North
America to the Tierra del Fuego on the tip of South America.
The fiscal year 2005 budget request, while not perfect,
does include continued funding for the museum and we will hear
from Rick West about some of the details of the budget this
morning.
I know you have some time limitations. I understand, Rick,
so with that I will just turn to Senator Inouye for his
comments and we will proceed.
Senator Inouye. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have a longer statement. I would like to
ask permission to have it included in the record.
The Chairman. Without objection, it will be included in the
record.
STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. INOUYE, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII,
VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
Senator Inouye. The journey that has led us here today has
been a long one. It began 17 years ago in February 1987 when
this committee held a hearing on a bill that was the precursor
of the Native American Graves, Protection and Repatriation Act.
At that hearing, the Secretary of the Smithsonian testified
that our great national museum was in possession of over 18,500
human remains of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native
Hawaiians. To say that I was horrified would be an
understatement.
That testimony served as the impetus to establish a
memorial on the National Mall that might serve as a final
resting place for those remains that could not be identified as
being associated with a particular tribe, Native community, or
family and thus returned.
Not long thereafter, I was invited to tour the Museum of
the American Indian Heye Foundation in New York. It was there I
first saw the vast collection of Native art and artifacts
gathered from Native communities in North, Central, and South
America, and the idea of establishing not only a memorial, but
a national museum to honor the contributions of Native peoples
was born.
Although, Mr. Chairman, I have to leave to participate in a
hearing of the Defense Appropriations Committee, I want to take
this time to join you in commending the director of the
National Museum, Rick West, for all that he has done to
shepherd the evolution of this museum from vision to reality.
On September 21, as you have noted, we will celebrate the
opening of this museum. I am told that there will be a grand
procession of Native peoples from all the Americas, proceeding
from the Washington Monument to the base of the Capitol and
then to the National Museum, the building that will forever
stand as a symbol of the magnificence of the Native peoples of
America, the first Americans.
It will also remind us that there was a time of deceit and
destruction and death and massacre. But today, it will be a
shrine to the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Sen. Inouye appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you for your eloquent statement,
Senator Inouye.
Rick, why don't you go ahead and proceed please.
STATEMENT OF RICK WEST, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE
AMERICAN INDIAN
Mr. West. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Senator Inouye, and members of the committee,
I am pleased and honored to be with you today to mark an
occasion of great importance to the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of the American Indian, the tens of millions of
Native people throughout the Americas, to the citizens of this
great Nation, namely the day on which after 1 decade of
planning, development and construction, we will open the Mall
museum.
As the founding director of the National Museum of the
American Indian, I would like to thank the Congress of the
United States for your unceasing support since 1989 when our
authorizing legislation was passed. It has been a long journey
and now it is time to celebrate.
Over the years, we have opened two facilities, the George
Gustav Heye Center in New York, the Cultural Resources Center
in Suitland, MD, and now we will finish with the Mall museum on
the last available site on this essential corridor of this
great Nation.
The Mall building comes from the heart and soul of Indian
country. In the early stages of design, we conducted numerous
consultations to learn more about what this building should
look and feel like. You will experience that when you enter on
the east side of the building. No person has described better
what the Smithsonian's 21st century National Museum of the
American Indian is all about. Tens of thousands of years of
Native culture, experience, history, and worthiness are
redeemed by this Native place that sits in the heart of the
Nation. Through that redemption, the museum creates an
unprecedented and remarkable opportunity for mutual
understanding and cultural reconciliation that provides a
marker for the ages.
Let me take you on a short tour of what the visitor will
see as they enter this magnificent structure. The visitor's
first introduction to this Native place will occur as he or she
steps onto the very site itself. Far beyond conventional
notions of landscape architecture, the eco-environment that
surrounds the building will mark it as a different destination.
Greeted by ``Grandfather rocks,'' walking beside a tumbling
stream from the time they enter the site until they reach the
building entrance on the east, passing by hundreds of
plantings, carefully selected to evoke that site in all its
pre-contact natural wonder. Visitors will pass through a
generous and welcoming portal to the building itself.
Inside and once past the interior welcoming areas, they
will find themselves in the captivating and perhaps defining
space of the museum, the Potomac. This atrium which soars some
five museum stories high, the full height of the building,
welcomes and even encourages through its ample windows visual
connections between the building and its environmental
surround. It is a central gathering space for the building, the
home for varied public programs of dance, music, other
performance art and demonstrations that confirm not only the
deep, rich and varied cultural past of Native peoples of the
Americas, but also and as important, their cultural
contemporaneousness as cultural phenomena of the present, and
not just the past.
Now I would like to briefly share what we are planning for
the opening week itself. On the morning of September 21, 2004,
we will begin an all-Native procession starting at 8 a.m. and
ending at 12 noon, as thousands of Native peoples, along with
some of our very best non-Native friends, many of the Native
people in their resplendent regalia that marks their
communities, move together in procession down the National
Mall.
Beginning at the Smithsonian's key icon, the Castle, to a
ceremonial place of commemoration and dedication located at the
foot of the Capitol Building just across the street from the
museum itself. Following a brief opening ceremony, and I
personally promise that it will be that, the thousands of well-
wishers and celebrants, Native and non-Native alike, will
proceed to the museum itself.
In addition to the procession and the opening, we are
planning the First Americans Festival on the National Mall for
an entire week following September 21, 2004 to expand and
enhance further our visitors' knowledge and views of Native
America past and present. A memorable combination of music,
dance, song, theater, symposia, and seminars, the festival will
sit physically on the National Mall between the Capitol
Building of the Nation on the east and the Washington Monument
on the west, surely, a most remarkable and welcoming act of
cultural sharing by those who were here with those who came. We
have invited over 150 participants hemispherically represented
to the festival, so it should be an extremely rich experience
indeed.
We expect broad media coverage for opening day. It will be
webcast on the radio both national and international, as well
as on PBS. We also plan to include jumbo-trons along the Mall
as well, so that all of our tens of thousands, if not hundreds
of thousands of visitors can share in this experience.
This concludes my statement. Now I would like to introduce
Jackie Johnson, NCAI executive director, who will talk about
the unique partnership we will share for the opening of the
National Museum of the American Indian.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Prepared statement of Mr. West appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Jackie, will you proceed?
STATEMENT OF JACKIE JOHNSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
CONGRESS OF AMERICAN INDIANS
Ms. Johnson. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Vice Chairman, and members of the committee. I just would like
to followup with some of the things that Rick said, but
clearly, and I have a statement which I know that you will
enter for the record.
The Chairman. It will be included in the record.
Ms. Johnson. I just want to summarize for you, because I am
very excited about this opening.
The Chairman. We can tell. You are in a very good mood.
Ms. Johnson. I am. I am in a really good mood. [Laughter.]
I am feeling better in the last 2 days. But anyway, I am
very excited about this opening and what an opportunity this is
for Native Americans of this country and the Western
Hemisphere. It is a great opportunity for us and we as tribal
leaders in this country have gathered. We have recognized that
this is a tremendous opportunity for us to educate the public
at large about who we are and who we are today, where we have
come, and the contributions that we have made to this great
country.
We recognize this partnership and being able to work with
the museum has been a very educational process for all of us. I
just might even mention that in my years before coming here, I
got to be part of the design team for the Cultural Resource
Center. The whole environment of this development was so
culturally significant and sensitive to the environment of our
communities, the traditions that are important to us. That kind
of work as we move forward, I know that the millions of people
who are touched not just by going to the museum, but
participating in the development of the museum have learned a
lot and have grown a lot about our culture and our traditions.
So I wanted to thank Rick and his team for that.
NCAI's role is really to be an adviser, to help with
outreach and information, making sure that everyone has all the
information that is going to be happening, and encouraging
folks to get involved early on, make their reservations, and be
a participant.
In addition to the Folk Life Festival that they will be
having in the museum after the procession, NCAI will be
cosponsoring with the American Indian Society as part of the
opening a cultural ceremony, which is a social dance where
tribes can feel very comfortable in addition to the structured
environment, an open environment so everybody can engage as
they choose to.
In addition to that, we are trying to make sure that we do
the public education with this heightened media attention. So
we have had some initial conversations with members of your
staff on the committee on having a number of educational forums
here on the Hill to deal with a few of the significant issues.
In addition to that, we will be having at the National
Press Club on Wednesday and Thursday at noon two forums. The
first forum is going to be focused on our past, our heritage
and what do we contribute to the country. The second forum is
going to be on our contemporary selves and as tribal
governments, who are we today.
In addition to that, there are a number of other tribal
groups who want to sponsor or participate in other events. We
have asked that day to work through and in conjunction with us
at NCAI and the museum, so that we can make sure that everybody
knows about the events that are being planned, and that there
will not be any significant overlaps that would cause somewhat
of a scheduling frustration on those pieces.
I think that most of all, we are looking at this. We have
been working with the National Geographic and other groups who
are also going to be highlighting. In fact, National Geographic
is going to have a special publication that month just on
Native Americans, and has been working with the museum. We have
been advising them also on some technical aspects, as well as
some other public broadcasting systems.
So that is really what we would like to encourage, is this
collaborative effort. We would love to work with your
committee. I think that this would be a prime opportunity to
have a significant event, even a rally at some point, that
really promotes the positive benefits of opening the museum,
and we want to have a positive image of Indian Country, but
still deal with the reality of our current issues in this
environment.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Johnson appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you. Thanks for that very positive
presentation. Thank you for commending Rick West. He is
Cheyenne, you know. I thought I might put that in the record.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Johnson. I thought there was some relationship.
The Chairman. I never let a chance go by without pointing
that out.
Well, let me ask a couple of questions and I will turn to
Senator Murkowski. By the way, my new buckskins just came in
last week.
Mr. West. Did they? You are a couple of steps ahead of me,
then, I think. Mine are coming.
The Chairman. September is going to be hot, but you better
get yours out there anyway.
Do you have a round figure like you expect in the first
year to attend this new museum?
Mr. West. Yes, Mr. Chairman; the projected figures for
visitation range between 4 million and 6 million visitors per
year. Now, actually because of the size of the building, even
fully loaded, which is to say 16,000 people per day, that
really computes to about 4 million per year. So we have found
it necessary to go to a ticketing system for the museum, and
that will of course be in place when it opens, too. But the
visitorship will be very high. We sit right next to the most
visited museum in the world, the National Air and Space Museum,
and directly across from another of the most visited museums in
the world, the East Wing of the National Gallery.
The Chairman. You mentioned the first day there will
probably be thousands of people there. How are you going to
determine who gets in that first day, when that huge procession
is there?
Mr. West. Well, we have already put information on our
website, and that information, and let me just be very clear
about those websites. First of all, the information generally
about the opening is at www.americanindian.si.edu. As far as
getting tickets for the opening, we have already indicated
through the website that they can become available online, and
that is www.tickets.com.
The Chairman. That is on a first come, first serve basis?
Mr. West. It is. And we, of course, are holding back a
certain number of tickets.
The Chairman. Yes; will those tickets cost money?
Mr. West. For the tickets that are actually ordered online,
there is a small fee. It is not a cost of the ticket itself, it
is a handling charge. If the tickets are gotten at the museum
itself, there is no charge. People can also call 1-866-400-6624
and get tickets through that telephone line also.
The Chairman. It is my understanding that most of the
hotels in town have already been booked. Is that your
understanding, too? Have you heard that?
Mr. West. The hotels are filling up. As I understand it,
there is also another major convention that is going to be here
during that period. That, of course, has compounded the hotel
issues.
The Chairman. What was that a convention?
Mr. West. I think it is the Postal Service.
Ms. Johnson. Yes; the post office is having their
convention.
One of the things we have encouraged the tribes to do, in
addition to all the folks getting their conference hotels now,
many of the tribes that I have talked to are looking toward
outside of just the Washington, DC area and they are getting
charter buses to bring them in and out of Virginia, and trying
to make this into a larger event.
The Chairman. Well, I support the Postal Service, but we
were here first. [Laughter.]
We did get a couple of calls from people upset that they
could not ride their horses in the procession. The Park Service
apparently has said no to that.
Mr. West. Yes.
The Chairman. Or did the museum say no to that?
Mr. West. We both did. Let me explain exactly why we did
that. There are two reasons. First, is a human safety
consideration. We expect anywhere between 5,000 and 30,000
people in the procession itself.
The Chairman. Children too?
Mr. West. Children, too, old people, people who cannot move
quickly getting out of the way of 1,500 pound animals. So we
wanted to avoid any risk in that way.
The other thing I would say, and I say this speaking as a
good Cheyenne and a Plains Indian myself, I did not want to be
too hyper-ethnocentric from the Plains Indian standpoint. The
fact is that there are many Native people from Latin America
who will be joining us who would love to have brought their
llamas. We did not permit that because they are animals that
can create difficulties, too. So we just wanted to kind of even
the playing field, if you will. I have heard from a couple of
our good friends in Indian country out in the Plains country
about this, but that is the position that has been taken by
both the museum and the Park Service. We will explain that more
fully on the Web site at a certain point in time.
The Chairman. They will still have a great time.
Senator Inouye alluded to the remains problem we have had
years ago. In the authorizing bill, I remember it was one of
the things I worked on that required the Smithsonian to start
the process of returning skeletal remains to tribes. The old
macabre joke among Indian country was there are more dead
Indians in Washington than live ones for a long time before we
passed that legislation. What is the number that the
Smithsonian has finally reinterred so far or returned to
tribes?
Mr. West. I can certainly speak for the National Museum of
the American Indian. We had when we finally completed the
inventories, about 500 human remains. Those are not full sets
of human remains, but that includes something like the digital
part of a finger. The vast majority of those remains have been
deaccessioned already and are on their way to being returned.
We originally had hoped to wrap up the return of human
remains by the time we opened the Mall building. We will
probably fall slightly short of that, but it is in process and
is well along the way. I cannot speak definitively for the
National Museum of Natural History, our sister institution at
the Smithsonian, but I do know that at least by last count,
they had returned some 4,000 to 5,000 of the 18,000 human
remains that they had initially. They also have made
considerable progress. They had many more to contend with than
the National Museum of the American Indian.
The Chairman. I understand some are so ancient that nobody
can track where they came from.
Mr. West. That is one of the difficulties.
The Chairman. Sure.
Senator Murkowski, did you have some questions of Mr. West
or Jackie?
Senator Murkowski. Thank you and welcome. I, too,
appreciate the enthusiasm with which you reported to the
committee this morning.
Mr. West. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. It is going to be a very exciting event
and we are looking forward to it. I have to assume from your
comments that dog teams are also not welcome. [Laughter.]
Mr. West. Reluctantly so, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. Okay. Just in case we had any inquiries,
I don't think we had.
Mr. West. Okay.
Senator Murkowski. Just a couple of very brief questions.
In Alaska just recently, on February 16, we celebrated or
observed Elizabeth Peratrovich Day which is in honor of Tlingit
woman who really inspired I believe it was one of our Nation's
first anti-discrimination laws, a very inspirational and
motivational person in Alaska's history. I am wondering if the
museum is planning on addressing the civil rights struggle of
our first Americans and whether you would consider including
Elizabeth Peratrovich's contribution to the achievement of
equal rights for our first peoples.
Mr. West. She certainly made, as you point out, significant
contributions to arguing for the civil rights of the first
citizens of this hemisphere. We recognize this and I am well
aware of her contribution in this specific regard.
As far as what the museum itself is doing as of opening
day, there are various parts of the three inaugural permanent
installations, the exhibitions that speak to the very issues
that you are talking about. One of the exhibits in particular,
which I think addresses these kinds of concerns and what has
happened as a matter of history and for that matter, as a
matter of the present, because some of these issues continue,
as you know, is the exhibit ``Our Peoples,'' which is one of
those three inaugural exhibitions.
This is an effort on the part of the museum and our Native
community collaborators to address some of those questions of
Native history as told from a Native standpoint. In the course
of that discussion, setting up that dialog, a number of the
very kinds of civil rights questions come up that you were
referring to. They are an important part, I think, of the
Native community historical experience and I think that they
need to be addressed respectfully and head-on. We plan to do
that.
We also want to show through our presentations of the
contemporary life of Native peoples, how we have continued to
address those issues as the very person you are talking about
did so successfully in her own efforts. I would think that in
the course of discussions the surround those kinds of
installations and programs at the National Museum of the
American Indian there will be ample opportunity to discuss the
specific example that you raise.
Senator Murkowski. We will look forward to that.
I do not know whether this is something that is already in
the works, but Alaska and Washington, DC are a long ways apart
and I am reminded of that every week as I come back to work.
Understanding that we would like to get as many of our Alaskans
to the new museum as possible to view it, but the reality is
such that you will not be able to. Will there be any
interactive way that Alaskan can see what is going on in the
museum without actually having to come to Washington, DC?
Mr. West. Absolutely there will be. It brings me to that
component of the National Museum of the American Indian that
probably is the component that brought me here in the first
place. Had I not been confident that the National Museum of the
American Indian would be able to introduce these kinds of
connections that you refer to, I do not think I would be
sitting here right now.
That is that part of the museum that we have referred to
historically as the fourth museum of the National Museum of the
American Indian. ``Fourth'' because we are talking about it in
addition to the three physical facilities that we have, one in
New York and two here in Washington, DC. I realized exactly
what you say, which is to say that only a small fraction of the
Native peoples of the United States, let alone this hemisphere,
will ever set foot in any of our magnificent facilities in New
York or in Washington, DC. So we had to figure out ways to
bring the museum to them where they are, rather than expecting
them to come to the museum.
That is what the fourth museum is all about. It is really a
collective of programs, if you will, of the National Museum of
the American Indian. Let me describe it just briefly so that
you have a picture of it. Some of the ways of reaching out are
purely conventional as far as museum practice goes, loaning
objects, traveling exhibitions. But some of them take advantage
of 21st century technology, such as the Internet and virtual
connections.
We have actually already experimented with those in
connection with Alaska in particular, because that is probably
as far as the United goes, the most remote location for Native
peoples. What we did was in connection with an exhibition,
which we had gotten from the Anchorage Museum of Art and
History, which was the Y'upik mask show, and I remember you
husband was up there to see that show, not your husband,
Senator Murkowski, the first Senator Murkowski was up there. We
were able at that time to establish through our website a
linkage between a number of Y'upik elders who were actually
visiting that show and school children in Alaska. It was
interactive and in real time.
That, I think, bespeaks the potential for this kind of
connection, which is to say it is a way of bringing the
resources of the National Museum of the American Indian to
Native communities. The reason that we believe that is so
important is because we understand at the NMAI that Native
cultures are maintained and sustained and protected at the
community level, not here in Washington, DC or New York.
Senator Murkowski. Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Maybe one last question, or maybe two. There
is a support group that people can pay a nominal fee, whatever
it is, $10 a month or something like that, and belong to a
support group for the NMAI, isn't there?
Mr. West. There is a membership.
The Chairman. Membership, okay.
Mr. West. We have a membership program.
The Chairman. Right. How many members are in that now?
Mr. West. We have well over 50,000 members in that program
now, and it is by some margin the largest membership program of
any museum at the Smithsonian Institution, and has been very
successful. Through that program, some 250,000 Americans, and
even some of those beyond our borders, have participated in
supporting the National Museum of the American Indian. From the
membership program alone, we have netted some $15 million to
$20 million that went to the construction fund, which helped
build the building on the National Mall. So it is a very
important component of our efforts, which we realize we must
always pursue to raise private funds to supplement and amplify
those appropriations that we get from the Congress.
The Chairman. Yes.
Yes; Jackie.
Ms. Johnson. Could I add to that just for 1 second. If you
go to the website to order your tickets, you can also join your
membership right there for $100. We are really encouraging
folks when they order their tickets to also join that
membership.
The Chairman. The largest single donor was still the
Pequots.
Mr. West. There are three who are tied for that honor. They
were the first of the largest single donors.
The Chairman. Who were the three?
Mr. West. The three tribes are pledged $10 million to the
National Museum of the American Indian: the Mashentucket
Pequots, as you point out, were the first; the Mohegans of
Connecticut were the second; and the Oneidas in New York were
the third.
The Chairman. That is wonderful.
Thank you. I have no further questions. If there are any
further ones from the committee, we may send them in and have
them answered in writing.
Mr. West. That is fine. We will be happy to submit
anything.
The Chairman. Thank you for appearing today. We will keep
the record open for 2 weeks if there are any further comments.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:35 a.m. the committee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Additional Material Submitted for the Record
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Statement of Hon. Daniel K. Inouye, U.S. Senator from Hawaii, Vice
Chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs
Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement that I would like to have
included in the record, but in the interest of time, I would like to
say just a few words this morning.
The journey that has led us here today has been a long one--it
began 17 years ago in February 1987, when this committee held a hearing
on a bill that was the precursor to the Native American Graves
Protection and Repatriation Act.
At that hearing, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
testified that our great national museum was in possession of over
18,500 human remains of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native
Hawaiians.
That testimony served as the impetus to establish a memorial on the
National Mall that might serve as a final resting place for those
remains that could not be identified as being associated with a
particular tribe or Native community, and thus returned.
Not long thereafter, I was invited to tour the Museum of the
American Indian, Heye Foundation, in New York, and it was there I first
saw the vast collection of Native art and artifacts gathered from
Native communities in North, Central and South America, and the idea of
establishing not only a memorial but a national museum to honor the
contributions of the Native peoples of this continent was borne.
Although I have to leave to participate in a hearing of the Defense
appropriations subcommittee, I wanted to take this time today to
commend the Director of the National Museum of the American Indian,
Rick West, for all that he has done to shepherd the evolution of this
museum from vision to reality.
On September 21, 2004, we will celebrate the opening of the
National Museum of the American Indian. I am told that there will be a
grand procession of Native peoples from all of the Americas--proceeding
from the Washington Monument to the base of the Capitol, and then to
the National Museum of the American Indian--the building that will
forever stand as a symbol of the magnificence of the Native peoples of
the Americas--the First Americans.
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Prepared Statement of Jacqueline Johnson, Executive Director, National
Congress of American Indians
Gunalcheesh. Good morning Chairman Campbell, Vice Chairman Inouye,
and distinguished Committee Members. My name is Jacqueline Johnson, and
I serve as the Executive Director of the National Congress of American
Indians (NCAI). On behalf of the National Congress of American Indians
(NCAI) and its more than 250-member tribal nations, I am pleased to
have the opportunity to present testimony on the completion of the
National Museum of the American Indian. Thank you for affording me the
opportunity to represent our member nations and express our tremendous
excitement as the Museum nears completion.
As the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian
and Alaska Native tribal governments, NCAI is very proud to be able to
work with the Museum on this historical event that will impact not only
Indian Country, but the public at large who will be afforded the
opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the rich cultural
fabric of this Nation's native people through the NMAI's exhibits and
programs. We offer our deepest thanks to this committee for its
instrumental role in bringing this important effort to fruition.
NCAI has had the honor of working closely with the staff of the
Museum. The member tribes of NCAI and the NCAI Executive Board are very
excited about the opportunity the Museum will present to broaden public
understanding of the influence American Indian and Alaska Native
cultures have on our Nation as a whole, and the continuum of cultures
that continue to thrive in contemporary Native America.
NCAI is looking forward to the week of the opening, and we have
worked in conjunction with the staff of the NMAI to do consultation and
outreach to all tribal governments. NCAI has hosted open working
sessions during our Annual and Executive Council meetings to ensure
that tribes are informed about the activities planned and are able to
provide their ideas and input. We plan to hold another informational
session at our Mid-Year meeting this June in Uncasville, CN at the
Mohegan Sun facilities. NCAI has met with the NMAI staff throughout the
past 2 years to provide input in the planning process for the opening
events, and sits, on the Steering Committee that is supervising all of
the activities being planned for this momentous occasion.
In advance of the grand opening, NCAI will be hosting several
educational forums at the National Press Club and other venues in
Washington, DC to raise the awareness of the general public about the
contributions American Indians and Alaska Natives have made to this
country, as well as to educate the public on the issues facing tribes
today. Specifically, the first forum will focus on our past history and
our contributions to this country and the second forum will discuss our
contemporary issues and our identity as tribal governments in this
country. We feel it is important for the general public to see the
reality of tribal nations as the thriving governments and successful
communities with flourishing cultures and traditions--not just in the
light of romanticized notions of Indians from movies or books. NCAI has
also been advising the National Geographic as they prepare a special
edition of their publication in anticipation of the opening of the
Museum. NCAI supports the opening of the Museum and their efforts to
celebrate the vibrancy and longevity of over 560 distinct and beautiful
Native cultures as well as the Museum's intentions to dispel the
stereotypical images of a single pan-Native culture.
During the week of the Grand Opening, NCAI and the American Indian
Society will be hosting a cultural exchange for all of the tribal
groups that will be in town. This cultural exchange will include
sharing of tribal dances, songs, and other traditions by Native people.
NCAI is working to get the word out about NMAI opening events to ensure
that all tribes have the opportunity to celebrate this historic
opening. Since there are so many requests from groups wanting to do
events around this country, NCAI is requesting that organizations and
groups notify us of the planned activity so we may add it to our
national calendar and prevent overlapping of activities when possible.
In addition, NCAI will host several forums and briefings on Capitol
Hill related to the legislative priorities of Indian Country. NCAI
requests that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs works with us on
the planning of these forums and briefings to ensure that the Native
voice will be heard on the Hill during that week.
NCAI would like to once again express its support for the National
Museum of the American Indian, and thank the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs for holding this oversight hearing and for its extraordinary
efforts to pave the way for this historic recognition of the American
Indian and Alaska Native tribes of this Nation.
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Prepared Statement of W. Rick West, Jr., Director, National Museum of
the American Indian
Mr. Chairman, Senator Inouye, and members of the committee, I am
pleased and honored to be with you today to mark an occasion of great
importance to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the
American Indian, to the tens of millions of Native people throughout
the Americas, and to the citizens of this great Nation--namely, the day
on which, after 1 decade of planning, development, and construction,
the staff of the Museum are moving into our centerpiece building
located at the very head of America's National Mall and the national
capital's monumental core. This memorable occasion signifies the
commencement of the 9-month period leading to an even more important
date--September 21, 2004--when the National Museum of the American
Indian will open to the millions of people who will visit annually.
First, I would like to tell you briefly about the origins of this
hemispheric institution of living Native cultures and peoples. Second,
I want to describe what visitors will see and experience in this
uniquely Native place. Finally, beyond its impressive architecture and
physical presence, I want you to understand, as best I can communicate
it, the philosophy and spirit that always have shaped and driven, and,
indeed, are the National Museum of the American Indian.
The origins of this 21st century cultural institution are grounded
in the most remarkable assemblage of the cultural patrimony of the
first citizens of the Americas, coupled with enlightened and farsighted
political and public action and support. The collections of the Museum
are, in many important respects, without compare, encompassing some
800,000 objects that stretch geographically from Tierra del Fuego in
South America to the Arctic Circle in North America, and covering some
10,000 years in time--little wonder that, a decade and half ago, both
the Congress of the United States and the Smithsonian embraced the idea
that ours was a national collection that should sit within America's
preeminent national cultural institution. Authorized by a Democratic
Congress, with the authorizing legislation signed by a Republican
President, and supported by more than 250,000 members of the American
and international public since its founding, the National Museum of the
American Indian always has represented a seminal cultural initiative
that utterly transcends conventional political, cultural, and
geographic boundaries.
Its complicated, and sometimes even challenging, journey of
creation began with the opening of the George Gustav Heye Center in
1994. Our Cultural Resources Center, a state-of-the-art research and
study center, and home to our collections, located just outside of
Washington, DC, opened in 1999. Our journey will culminate, as it
should, with a powerfully symbolic Native presence on the National Mall
that opens on September 21, 2004.
And what a very special day--for everyone--September 21, 2004 will
be. I know that it will be not only a good day, but also a beautiful
day--no late September hurricanes will be permitted this coming fall.
That moment in the history of the National Museum of the American
Indian will begin as thousands of Native people, many of them in the
resplendent regalia that marks their communities, and their non-Native
friends and supporters move together, in procession, down the National
Mall, beginning at the Smithsonian's key icon, the ``Castle,'' to a
ceremonial place of commemoration and dedication located at the foot of
the Capitol Building just across the street from the Museum itself.
Following a brief opening ceremony, and I personally promise it will be
that, the thousands of well-wishers and celebrants, Native and non-
Native alike, will proceed to the Museum itself.
Their first introduction to this Native place will occur as they
step onto the very site itself Far beyond conventional notions of
landscape architecture, the ecoenvironment that surrounds the building
will mark it as a different destination. Greeted by ``Grandfather
rocks,'' walking beside a tumbling stream from the time they enter the
site until they reach the building entrance on the east, passing by
hundreds of plantings carefully selected to evoke that site in all its
pre-contact natural wonder, visitors will pass through a generous and
welcoming portal to the building itself.
Inside and once past the interior welcoming areas, they will find
themselves in the captivating and perhaps defining space of the
building--the Potomac. This atrium, which soars some five museum
stories high, the full height of the building, welcomes and even
encourages, through its ample windows, visual connections between the
building and its environmental surround. It is a central gathering
space for the building, the home for varied public programs of dance,
music, other performance art, and demonstration that confirm not only
the deep, rich, and varied cultural past of the Native peoples of the
Americas, but also, and as important, their cultural
contemporaneousness as cultural phenomena of the present and not just
the past.
Beyond the Potomac and in the principal galleries of the Museum,
visitors will see three inaugural permanent exhibitions that reflect
its fundamental belief that Native peoples themselves can speak with
knowledge and authenticity about the objects they have created through
the millennia, as well as the ideas and philosophies that motivated
their creation. In developing these installations, we collaborated with
some 2-dozen Native communities from throughout the Western Hemisphere
that selected objects from our collections and interpreted them within
the framework of the major exhibition themes.
Those themes, also based on extensive consultations with Native
communities and others from throughout the Americas, encompass, in many
ways, the wholeness of Native life. The first exhibition, entitled
``Our Universes,'' addresses Native philosophy and cosmology, what
makes us think and live the way we have in the past and do now, the
fundamental underpinnings of our existence through time and space. The
second installation, ``Our Peoples,'' represents a seminal opportunity
for Native communities, and the objects they have selected for the
exhibition, to speak directly to those events considered central to
their histories. Finally, in confirmation of the fact that tens of
millions of Native peoples are still among us in the Americas--right
now--the third exhibition, ``Our Lives,'' looks to the evolution,
through time and up to the present, of the individual and communal
identities of these first citizens of the Western Hemisphere.
In addition to all that goes on inside this Native place on the
National Mall, the opening of the National Museum of the American
Indian will include, for almost the entire week following September 21,
2004, ``The First Americans Festival,'' to expand and enhance further
our visitors' knowledge and views of Native America, past and present.
A memorable combination of music, dance, song, theater, symposia, and
seminars, the Festival will sit physically on the National Mall between
the Capitol Building of the Nation on the east and the Washington
Monument on the west--surely a most remarkable and welcoming act of
cultural sharing by those who were here with those who came.
Finally, I want to give you a sense of the philosophy, the
sensibilities, and the spirit that sit behind, that ground all that I
have said about the National Museum of the American Indian, its
imposing physical structures, and its ambitious exhibitions and public
programs. I do so because this sense is absolutely essential to a real
understanding of the true meaning and significance of September 21,
2004.
The National Museum of the American Indian, indeed, does represent
the long overdue and entirely appropriate recognition and affirmation
of the vast cultural contributions that Native peoples and communities
have made and continue to make to all that we define as
``civilization.'' A case can be made that Native America, as the
originating element of American heritage, should have been among the
first to be acknowledged with a museum on the National Mall--and yet we
arrived last. But in an illuminating act of great symbolism, we now
occupy the first or keystone place in America's monumental core,
sitting as we do at the very foot of the national Capitol Building and
directly across from what many consider to be the apex, the apotheosis
of western civilization, the East Wing of the National Gallery--a
placement, at long last, between equals in the political and cultural
heart of America. This circling back of American history on itself to a
new point of affirmation and resolution is not only completely right--
for me it comes as close to pure historical poetry as I could ever
imagine.
The National Museum of the American Indian, however, does not stop
here, worthy as this aspiration and goal are--it is much more. This
international institution of living Native cultures and communities
represents, ultimately, a pivotal meeting ground, a significant
historical opportunity for the Native and non-Native worlds to achieve
a profoundly important cultural understanding and reconciliation that
has eluded American history from its beginning. That understanding and
reconciliation are grounded not only in recognition of the legitimate
place of Native peoples in the histories of the Americas, but also in
an appreciation, on the part of both Natives and non-Natives, that all
of us share a common humanity that transcends ethnic and cultural
differences at the same it recognizes and embraces them.
No person has described better what the Smithsonian's 21st century
National Museum of the American Indian is all about. Through it, tens
of thousands of years of Native culture, experience, history, and
worthiness are redeemed by this Native place that sits in the heart of
the Nation. Through that redemption, the Museum creates an
unprecedented and remarkable opportunity for mutual understanding and
cultural reconciliation that provides a marker for the ages. The
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian:
Cultural redemption and reconciliation in the 21st century.
Now I would like to briefly touch on our fiscal year 2005 budget
request. Fiscal Year 2005 will be the first full operational year for
the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall. Just days from
our official opening on September 21 of this year, the new fiscal year
will start. Our request for increases for the 2005 appropriations cycle
are key to the provision of full programmatic and operational needs of
the last museum opening on the Nation's Mall. This request reflects
specific needs to address the new aspects of our operations directly
related to the public attendance at the museum.
Therefore, we are asking the Congress for authority to increase our
FTE by 7 and our base operating budget by $1.102M (including $602K for
one time costs and $500K, mostly for salaries and benefits.) One time
costs are for technology support and visitor services opening needs.
The remainder is for salaries and benefits for 7 new positions, mainly
in the public programs area. In addition we have requested authority to
redirect previous one time money in the amount of $2.536M and 27 FTE to
become a part of our base in order to support various needs of the Mall
Museum operation.
The fiscal year 2005 request also reflects a programmatic decrease
of $700K and 9FIEs for development staff and a decrease of $6.843M for
one time costs associated with the opening of the Mall Museum. This
estimate also reflects restoring the fiscal year 2004 rescissions
($477K).
Although these needs are reflected elsewhere in the Smithsonian
Institution budget, the opening of the NMAI will put a severe strain on
the Institution's security and facilities operations budgets. I
anticipate very large numbers of visitors to the Museum that will
demand increased levels of security consistent with a heavily visited
Museum at the foot of the Congress and that will also require increased
facilities support to maintain the building as large crowds gain
access.
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony before this
committee, I would be glad to answer any questions you may have.