On Friday of this past week, we traveled to an Indian museum/Native American museum in Oklahoma City. We had been hearing about it for quite some time and scheduled a visit.
I learned a new word, WINIKO. It is from the language of the Caddo Indian Nation and means “life of an object:” The tour guide of the First American Museum (FAM) provided the broadest description; life and spirit connect all things.
The museum originally called the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum opened September 18, 2021, following nearly three decades of planning.
Tragically, only four tribal Nations were originally from what is now the State of Oklahoma. Sixty-seven tribes were removed from their homelands across the contiguous United States to Indian Territory. When Oklahoma became the 46th state to enter the union the name came from two Choctaw words “Okla” and “Homma”, meaning Red People.
Thirty-nine tribal nations currently reside within the State of Oklahoma. Thirty-eight are federally recognized and the Yuchi community remain citizens of the Muscogee Nation. Only four tribes have direct ancestral ties: the Apache, Caddo, Wichita, and Tonkawa. The current thirty-nine tribes have now established common strong political and economic bodies.
The first exhibit we viewed was a 270-degree semicircular colorful and dynamic movie that presented tribal stories. These were narrated and created by Native community members. It was humbling to learn the First American’s stories of the formation of our Earth, recognizing the sun as the “birthing” of our planet.
As we moved through the museum audio pods provided storytelling that honored the oral histories of the tribal nations. The stories were both tragic and triumphant—Native peoples’ experiences in their ancestral lands, the hardship of removal and assimilation, along with the hopes for the future.
The 175,000 square foot building houses holdings of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Selections include over one hundred cultural materials collected from tribes in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. The objects left Oklahoma when non-Native institutions were rapidly acquiring materials from our so-called “vanishing” tribal cultures. Now one hundred years later, an all-Native curatorial team has led the process of returning these objects to Oklahoma. The First American Museum (FAM) chose to honor these objects’ homecoming by facilitating reunions between the historic objects and the descendants of their makers or owners. Many of the artifacts displayed include reunion photos of the decedents of the original maker. This included bead work, drums, leggings, and decorative ceremonial objects. This is the celebration of WINIKO.
A portion of the museum is classified as the OKLA HOMMA, and interprets stories through sight, sound, and touch. Enduring subjects included (mis)representation, sports, games, and warriors. This Cheyenne proverb personally resonated, WOMEN WARRIORS “A Nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is finished, no matter how brave its warriors or how strong its weapons.”
I had a politically correct learning curve, not to say Red Skin, not to say Indian, not to say American Indian, not to say Indigenous, but rather say FIRST AMERICAN.
Indigenous People’s Day, formerly called Columbus Day, will be celebrated on Monday, Oct. 12. Be correct in honoring our First Americans.
VIEW FROM MY WINDOW is shared by Mary Weaver of rural Rippey.
