Native American Museum

1581 Words4 Pages

George Gustav Heye Center - The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is a fascinating building at the Bowling Green area of Lower Manhattan. It’s close to Battery Park that displays an elegant view of the water. You can see ferries floating by headed towards Staten Island, since South Ferry Terminal is nearby. It allows you to appreciate the hidden gems of the city located in the outskirts Manhattan. One of those very treasures is the museum mentioned previously.

The Museum of the American Indian is directly in front of the Bowling Green Park with a water fountain at the center. From the park view you can see the front of the museum. It has stone steps with statues on the sides. Walking in to the museum up the grand stairs led me to the entrance protected by security with metal detectors. Out of the various museums I’ve previously visited in NYC this was the first time I’ve encountered going through metal detectors, maybe because the museum is free and open to the public?

From that point on there’s a digital interactive guide that displays the layout of the museum and location of the exhibits. The museum is divided into quadrants with an elliptical rotunda in the middle. The rotunda is illuminated by natural light from the glass dome with skylights above you. Also when you look up you can see extraordinary symbolic painting on the ceiling. From the center of the rotunda you can go left or right to see the exhibits of Native Americans. For some reason I felt like going in through the left, aside from the fact that the right side was closed for renovations. I headed left into the “Time Exposure” exhibit by the Haudenosaunee Discovery Room. When entering the exhibit it can seem a bit disoriented, but you just have...

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...due to the external forces such as other settlers e.g. the Navajos, new settlers along with the Spanish conquerors entered their world. As a result the Pueblo Indians were imposed by these external forces especially through military power that changed their ways completely; having minimal cultural practices of their ancestors before them. The museum may seem like it’s very limited to what’s on exhibit mostly because not all of the building is in use. However the few exhibits they have is substantial in sparking an interest or even beginning to understand the cultures of Native Americans.

Works Cited

http://nmai.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/item/194

http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/exhibition-smithsonian-documents-impact-railroads-native-southwest

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/482769/Pueblo-Indians

http://www.bigorrin.org/pueblo_kids.htm

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