"We Don't Live like That Anymore": Native Peoples at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife, 1970-1976

Abstract

"We Don't Live like That Anymore":Native Peoples at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife, 1970-1976 William S. Walker (bio) When American Indian activists occupied Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay in November 1969, one of their central demands was for the federal government to cede the island for the construction of an "All-Indian University and Cultural Complex." The proposed complex reflected the desire on the part of the island's occupiers for Native control over the study of American Indian society, culture, and religion and was part of a burgeoning trend among American Indians both on reservations and in cities toward revitalizing Native cultures and reorienting scholarship on American Indians.1 It demonstrated the widespread attitude among Native peoples that conventional, white-dominated institutions did not fairly or accurately represent their lives and traditions. One such institution was the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, which had been one of the leading collectors and interpreters of Native "artifacts" since the late nineteenth century.2 In July 1970, while the occupation of Alcatraz continued, however, the Smithsonian experimented with a new approach to the exhibition of Native cultures, one that held the promise of fundamentally transforming the institution's relationship with American Indians. That summer, the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife, an annual event on the National Mall featuring tradition bearers from around the country, premiered a new American Indian program that combined presentations of Native traditions with panel discussions of contemporary social, political, and economic issues facing Native communities.3 More than three decades before the National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington, the Smithsonian debuted a type of exhibition that involved American Indians interpreting their own histories and cultures. [End Page 479] This period of turmoil was the beginning of a long journey for the Smithsonian—and American museums, in general—toward new modes of exhibiting and interpreting Native histories and cultures. It was also the start of a journey for Native scholars and activists such as George Horse Capture, who found inspiration and empowerment through participation in the Alcatraz occupation and whose career path eventually led to an important position as a curator and administrator at the National Museum of the American Indian. Horse Capture was part of a rising generation that drew on the impetus that Alcatraz provided to pursue new cultural, political, and intellectual projects that ultimately moved Native scholars and activists to the center of national conversations about American Indians.4 From the 1960s onward, American Indian leaders, scholars, and communities embraced the social and political goal of self-determination at the same time as they embarked on cultural renewal and revitalization projects. Tribal museums and cultural centers often played important roles in these efforts, and, over time, particular tribes, cultural organizations, and individuals were able to construct powerful narratives of Native history and culture that challenged dominant representations at institutions such as the Smithsonian. Starting in the 1970s and accelerating in the 1980s and 1990s, Smithsonian officials began responding to internal and external pressures to revise dated representations of American Indians in the institution's museums and initiate programs that drew more Native peoples into the process of collecting, preserving, and interpreting Native objects. This process took decades and was deeply contested, and it has been well documented elsewhere.5 Smithsonian officials not only wrestled with the major issue of if and how to create a separate American Indian museum but also were at the center of the repatriation controversy and debates over how to repair the discipline of anthropology's relationship with Native peoples and communities. Moreover, curators struggled with how best to incorporate Native histories into the broader narrative of American history. Despite the relatively large (and growing) body of literature on the Smithsonian and American Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, however, one of the Smithsonian's earliest and most intriguing projects in this broader effort to accommodate the shifting landscape of Native representation has not received much attention. The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife's American Indian [End Page 480] presentations offered an experimental, even radical, alternative to conventional museum displays. No doubt inspired by what was occurring among Native...