Linda and Vera, from the National Museum of the American Indian, met us in the lobby of the Holiday Inn on C Street, with a cute little cart just big enough for Clarissa’s loom plus two bags full of weaving supplies and informational photographs and display materials. Together, we walked the cart two blocks to the employee entrance of the museum — a massive structure built of sandstone blocks, which sits a stone’s throw from the Capitol Building at the east end of the Mall in Washington DC.
 Clarissa poses outside the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. |
Clarissa had been invited to Washington to conduct research, and also to demonstrate a Native Alaskan style of weaving known as “Chilkat weaving” at NMAI. Clarissa is one of only a handful of weavers who are actively making new works using this unusual form of weaving practiced by the Tlingit Indians of Southeast Alaska. She had brought along her latest “in-progress” weaving, as well as several examples of completed pieces. She would spend the next three days in the enormous lobby of the museum, introducing the weaving to herds of rambunctious school children in t-shirts, and conservative retired couples in fine wool coats. I was tagging along as Clarissa’s “assistant.”
The National Museum of the American Indian is the newest of the numerous Smithsonian museums in Washington. It opened its doors just two years ago, after many years of planning, and was located on the last available piece of real estate on the Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. Its mission is to create educational presentations about the cultures, histories and arts of the many different American Indian and Eskimo tribes of North and South America.
We arrived in the lobby with our little cart full of goodies, and Clarissa picked out a likely spot between a big South American reed canoe and an Eskimo kayak. With the help of Linda and Vera, we commenced to set up the weaving loom and a table full of photos, materials samples and portfolios that visitors could handle and peruse. Then we dressed a manikin in a woven ceremonial outfit that Clarissa refers to a “Copper Man.” By 10 am we were ready to entertain the crowds that were already wandering through the museum.
American Indian cultures have historically been treated by many museums as if they were already extinct. Walking into one of the Smithsonian museums twenty years ago, you would probably have found the American Indians located between the Dinosaurs and the Wooly Mammoths, illustrated by statue-decked dioramas portraying the daily life of a bygone and presumably vanished culture. But in recent years, museums have been making a concerted effort to acknowledge that American Indians do, in fact, still exist, and still have vibrant cultures and thriving artistic traditions. NMAI was a major step by the Smithsonian Institute to move in that direction. The museum features not only historical exhibits but also contemporary artists, both visual and performing. In fact, as a happy coincidence for Clarissa and I, our eldest daughter Lily would be performing at NMAI during the same three days we would be there. We looked forward eagerly to seeing her Tlingit Indian theater group’s performance.
But the coincidences did not stop there, as it turned out. To our delight, a group of five Alaska Native school teachers from Clarissa’s home town of Juneau, Alaska also showed up in the lobby — a group that included Lily’s first grade teacher, Kitty Eddy, and one of Clarissa’s recent weaving students, Shgen George. The group was doing research for “place-based” educational programs for the Juneau school district — a curriculum that would include a generous helping of indigenous cultural information blended into classroom reading, writing and math subjects. After a round of hugs, the teachers proceeded to learn as much as they could about Clarissa’s work in the short time they had available to them. Someone mentioned the idea of singing a tribal song, and Clarissa suggested that Hans Chester, the only man in the group, ought to put on the “Copper Man” outfit and “dance it.” The outfit was fairly new and had never been “danced,” so everyone agreed it was a good idea. Someone went off to ask the museum for a drum — the only instrument commonly used in Tlingit Indian performances — and by the time they returned, Hans was decked out in the “Copper Man” robe, dance apron and ceremonial hat.
Clarissa and the four lady teachers began singing, to the beating of the frame drum, and Hans began dancing. Within moments people were streaming into the lobby from all corners of the museum to witness the impromptu performance. Hans danced around the circular lobby to the strong voices of the teachers singing old traditional songs. The drum thumped a heart beat rhythm, Hans spun and twirled in the “Copper Man” regalia.
 School teacher Nancy Eddy leads the singing. |
At one point, I saw Clarissa stop singing and turn away from the group; she had been overcome with emotion and tears streamed down her face. I put my arm around her. “All of a sudden I saw Harry Bremner,” she told me between sobs, “and then I saw more elders: Ida Kadashan, Ann Keener, Jenny Thlunaut, Austin Hammond.”
I knew all these names as elders who had passed away, and who had once been special to a much younger Clarissa. Continued…
 Alaskan school teacher Hans Chester dancing in the lobby of NMAI as visiting school kids look on. |
Then the performance was finished. The crowd dispersed as we wrapped “Copper Man” back around his manikin and the drum was returned to the museum office. Some goodbye hugs and then the teachers headed out to their research, and Clarissa and I settled in to demonstrate for the visitors.
As I watched the lines of school kids passing by, and separately, the old retired couples in their fine coats, I though about what an odd culture surrounds me here in America. I had just witnessed a spontaneous gathering of Tlingit tribal members, here in Washington DC, three thousand miles from their homes. Within minutes of meeting, they had scrounged up a drum and performed an impromptu cultural event involving singing and dancing. This delightful event was enjoyed by dozens of my fellow Americans who will probably never in their lives experience what it means to be part of such a tribe — such a family, really.
There at NMAI, we had, all of us, come together for a brief instant: the children and the adults. Then I watched the children go off in one direction, and the elders in the other.
Tribal membership — something I will never fully experience — is a two sided proposition. The love and support that I see Clarissa sharing with her fellow Tlingits, on occasions like this one, is balanced by negative forces within the tribe: jealousy, back-stabbing, favoritism — all the mechanisms that operate in a closed family group. Do I wish I belonged to a tribe, the way Clarissa belongs to one? I would have to think hard before answering that one.
I think back to a strange event from my childhood. My family — mom, dad, sister and myself — had gone camping with my Aunt Claire ‘s family. We had pitched our camp beside in river in the mountains of California, and after dinner one night, we sat around the campfire and sang songs together: The Old Gray Mare, I Been Working on the Railroad, Go Tell Aunt Rhody. I must have been about six years old at the time. My memory of that “tribal” cultural event — such as it was — is all the sweeter because it never happened again.