THE AMERICAN INDIANS, THE REAL TREASURE OF THE USA

The Beans visit the NMAI in Washington D.C.

Today, The Beans have visited The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. They have enjoyed a lot visitiing this place and they have decided to visit a Native American Indian Community in a few days.

The National Museum of the American Indian is part of the Smithsonian Institution and is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere—past, present, and future—through partnership with Native people and others. 

The museum works to support the continuance of culture, traditional values, and transitions in contemporary Native life. It has three facilities: the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which opened on September 21, 2004, on Fourth Street and Independence Avenue, Southwest; the George Gustav Heye Center, a permanent museum in New York City; and the Cultural Resources Center, a research and collections facility in Suitland, Maryland. 

More information: National Museum of the American Indian

The foundations for the present collections were first assembled in the former Museum of the American Indian in New York City, which was established in 1916, and which became part of the Smithsonian in 1990.

Traditional Navajo Jewelry

Following controversy over the discovery by Native American leaders that the Smithsonian Institution held more than 12,000–18,000 Indian remains, mostly in storage, United States Senator Daniel Inouye introduced in 1989 the National Museum of the American Indian Act.Passed as Public Law 101-185, it established the National Museum of the American Indian as a living memorial to Native Americans and their traditions. 

The Act also required that human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony be considered for repatriation to tribal communities, as well as objects acquired illegally. Since 1989 the Smithsonian has repatriated over 5,000 individual remains – about 1/3 of the total estimated human remains in its collection.

More information: History.com

On September 21, 2004, for the inauguration of the Museum, Senator Inouye addressed an audience of around 20,000 American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, which was the largest gathering in Washington D.C. of indigenous people to its time.

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, 

living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society 

that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. 

 For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. 

That stigma takes a terrible toll. 

 Joshua Oppenheimer