The great southwest has been populated by indigenous peoples for centuries. The Heard Museum focuses on these Native Americans and features their history, culture and art. One of the standing sculptures features Native Americans serving their country as soldiers in World War II. Indeed, one of the heroes who raised the US flag on Iwo Jima was Pima Indian, Ira Hayes… but I digress. We visited the Heard Museum in 2015. You can review that article and photos here.

The Indian boarding schools began in 1879, and over they years, they numbered in the hundreds. Though most are gone now, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) still runs four boarding schools, Chemawa Indian School at Forest Grove, OR, Sherman Indian School at Riverside, CA, Flandreau Indian School at Flandreau, SD, and Riverside Indian School at Anadarko, OK. The exhibit above features a bunk from one of the dorms.

Several large display posters feature quotes from early boarding school residents. The above poster reads, “Since the day I was taken from my mother I had suffered extreme indiginities. People had stared at me. i had been tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet. And now my long hair was shingled like a cowards! In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me, as my own mother used to do; for now I was only one of the many little animals driven by a herder.”

The above quote is from Impressions Of An Indian Childhood, written by Zitkala-Sa (aka Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), a Native American writer, editor, musician and teacher who was born and raised on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.

Only the blacks and the Indians were segregated from the general population at schools in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s integrated blacks into the school systems, but to this day, there are still four BIA boarding schools for Native Americans. The quote on the panel above reads, “When one Indian boy or girl leaves this school with an education, the ‘Indian Problem’ will forever be solved for him and his children.” – Joshua Lippincott on the dedication of the Haskell Institute, 1884.

Lippincott worked with the firmly established Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. He left Carlisle for Lawrence, Kansas and was elected Chancellor of the University of Kansas. Following many of the principles learned at the Carlisle School and under Lippincott’s leadership, Haskell Institute started as an Indian boarding school in 1884. Lippincott, however, deviated from the Carlisle model by removing the Indian completely from the vicinity of their home and reservations. Today, Haskell Indian Nations University is a federally operated tribal university and offers associate and bachelor degrees.

The exhibit features many of the commonalities between the Indian schools and mainstream education of the time. However the focus on segregation brought a new understanding to me of how the American Indian population has been treated. The quote in the above panel reads, “I still picture my folks to this day, just standing there crying, and I was missing them. My grandfather, tears coming out of his eyes. I got on the train and I don’t even know who was in the train because my mind was so full of unhappiness and sadness…” – San Juan Pueblo Boarding School Student, 1915.

From the barber chair where students lost their long locks to the band uniforms, the exhibits focus on life in the schools for the large number of Native Americans who were taken from their homes and families, their culture and history taken away or minimized in an effort to assimilate them into the general population, yet ironically when they graduated, they went back to their reservations. More about this eye-opening exhibit can be found on the Heard Museum’s website, here. The gallery of images below features more views of the boarding school exhibit as well as some of the other exhibits in the museum. Click on  an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner

Phoenix, Arizona

Regular readers have been following our visits to ancient Native American sites and even a Native American Powwow in the last few weeks. For today’s Travel Tuesday, I am featuring a visit to a Native American museum in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. May, 2015 to be exact.

The Heard Museum – Focus on the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas

On one of the warmest days yet this spring, my wife, Lynn, and I decided to spend some quality time in a museum that we were told should be on our list of places to visit in Phoenix. Our friends were correct.

We spent an interesting afternoon learning about several indigenous Native American groups that lived in the Southwest long before even the Spaniards came. We even discovered after we had lunch elsewhere that we could have enjoyed a nice lunch  in the Courtyard Cafe.

To view the rest of the blog post and the gallery of images, click here.

John Steiner

Phoenix, Arizona

On one of the warmest days yet this spring, my wife, Lynn, and I decided to spend some quality time in a museum that we were told should be on our list of places to visit in Phoenix. Our friends were correct.

We spent an interesting afternoon learning about several indigenous Native American groups that lived in the Southwest long before even the Spaniards came. We even discovered after we had lunch elsewhere that we could have enjoyed a nice lunch  in the Courtyard Cafe.

We took advantage of the hourly tours with friendly guides who, depending on the tour, explained in depth or highlighted parts of the museum collection. We spent a lot of time in the air conditioned comfort of the museum’s interior, but as you will see from my collection of photos, we spent some quality time outdoors in several garden areas as well. During our visit, a couple of Native American artists demonstrated their skills at screen printing. Lynn and I are now proud owners of two screen prints, now framed and hanging in our house. The prints were freely given to visitors with not even a request for donation.

Tours start at 10 AM and continue through the afternoon, each one hour in length. There is some duplication of the tours each day so you can schedule a block of time and get multiple tours that cover most of the museum. Get there early and spend the day, however, you’ll find plenty to keep you busy with dioramas and video presentations as well.

The museum, founded in 1929 by Dwight and Maie Heard, is internationally recognized for its portrayal of the life and times of the Native American, his arts and cultures. Our tour guide volunteer, Rick, presented a one-hour walk through the history of the early peoples of Arizona and New Mexico. Before retiring, Rick spent part of his life teaching in a boarding school for Native Americans. His unique perspective referenced on his tour gave us special insights after our tour concluded as we walked through the second floor exhibit of life in a boarding school in earlier times. The story of the museum and information about current exhibits can be found at their website here.

One current exhibit is the commemoration of the centennial of the release of the Chiricahua Apache people from the status of prisoners of war. In 1914 their release was accompanied by allotments of land in and around Fort Sill, Oklahoma. On display through April 3, 2016; the Houser/Haozous Family: Celebrating a Century features sculptures that show the pride, reverence and endurance possessed by the Chiricahua Warm Springs Apache. The exhibit is featured in a garden at the museum.

I submit for your approval a gallery of images collected at the Heard Museum on a warm spring day. Click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

John Steiner