Volume 13 Number 1
October 1973

Patrick T. Houlihan

MUSEUMS throughout the country are discovering that their three traditional functions of collection, exhibition and research are not enough--that their audiences are seeking new and different services. For museums of anthropology and ethnic arts, the manner in which their resources are shared with ethnic audiences will in large part determine their relevancy to these audiences.

For too long museums have played a passive role in American Indian education. Three recent programs at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, point up some of the activist roles museums can play in furthering educational opportunities for American Indians. In an age when Native Americans throughout the country are demanding an input in museums’ interpretation of their past cultures, these programs suggest what can and must be done by museums to aid American Indian education today. The Heard’s programs are important because the initiative for them came from the various Indian communities and because the museum was flexible enough to respond to these needs of the communities.

On three separate occasions during the 1973 spring semester, the Heard Museum has loaned the Navajo Community College in Many Farms, Arizona, resource material (paintings and artifacts) for exhibition on the college campus. The themes of the three exhibits were, "Plains Indian Painting," "Southwest Indian Painting" and "Contemporary Indian Painting." Each of these exhibits was of two weeks’ duration and each coincided with a series of lectures on these subjects in a course entitled, "The History of American Indian Painting."

The course is taught by Clifford Beck, a Navajo artist and community college instructor. The paintings were displayed in the college library where adequate security and accessibility could be assured. In addition to the student audience on the Many Farms campus, publicity in the Navajo Times and the college newsletter encouraged other students and residents of neighboring communities on the Navajo Reservation to view the exhibits.

Thus, the Navajo Community College campus offered both the location and the program for utilizing the Museum’s educational resources.

Within the last year, a newly created Apache Reservation has been struggling to become economically viable. Located near Payson, Arizona, approximately 100 Tonto Apaches have settled on 80 acres of land near the Tonto National Forest. The task of building home craft industries by the reservation’s women has been advanced by recent study visits to the Heard Museum. In an effort to produce income, as well as fostering an Apache identity, several of the women have visited the Museum to study its collections. Beadwork and basketry designs of Apache artifacts in the Museum’s reserve collection were examined with the intention of improving on the quality and authenticity of current craft work.

The impetus for such visits came from a Health Education Assistant who first contacted the Museum for assistance and then aided the Apaches with transportation to the Museum. The Heard’s role was that of providing the educational resources and the personnel assistance to view and study its collections.

In early February, students from the Institute for American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, visited the Heard Museum with their Videotape equipment. The students were members of a photography course conducting a field study by recording an exhibit of contemporary Indian sculpture in the Museum’s Gallery of Indian Art.

Museum personnel assisted the students in taping the works on exhibit and in the reserve collections. In addition, the students and their instructor interviewed Museum personnel and a member of the Board of Trustees. More than simply an exercise in student photographic training, the videotaping produced a valuable record of some of the best in contemporary Indian sculpture for the Institute and brought about an airing of Indian and "Anglo" assumptions on contemporary Indian art.

Again, the Museum was sharing its resources with the people whose heritage it has helped to preserve.

The above three programs at the Heard Museum suggest new and flexible uses of museum collections to provide educational opportunities for American Indians. The programs provide an example of how the past heritage of Indian arts and culture preserved in museum collections can be returned to benefit the future of Indian arts.