Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums:
Preserving Our Language, Memory and Lifeways
National Conference II
May 24-27, 2005

Closing Plenary:
The Shock of Change - Notes for Presentation

By Tom Hill
Museum Director

Preamble:

Sago, Sge:noh, Sagoli, E wen, Ahnee, Good Afternoon. May I take this opportunity to thank Alyce Sadongei, Assistant Curator for Native American Relations, Arizona State Museum for inviting me to this conference for Tribal Libraries, Archives and Museums. It’s a real pleasure to be here in Mesa and to experience this wonderful “heat” you are experiencing. When I left yesterday, Canada was usual; the temperature was around 10 Celsius; we are receiving a lot of rain; however our world has changed from a brown to a lush green and there is an explosion of wild fruit blossoms in the woods. “We ni sri yoh” – It’s a nice day is a common phrase we hear.

About 1969, I was here in Phoenix - actually Mesa and I was just beginning as an arts and craft officer for the Canadian Government. I came here to attend an Art Fair but I can’t tell you which reservation that it was held on. Next Friday, I’ll be retiring from the Woodland Cultural Centre, so this is my last official trip to come to this conference in Mesa and what a treat it has been. I began my career and ended it here in Mesa, Arizona. I haven’t much time to think what this has meant but I do know a whole lot of changes have occurred from 1969 to 2005.

This morning, I’m going to speak using a slide projector. I’m afraid I’m not technical adapt to have put it on a CD Rom Disc. My words will correspond with the picture but also, my words will be juxtaposed against the vivid images. Hopefully the slides will give another insight into the work that I do at the Centre and to add further a visual dimension to what I have to say.

I can only speak from my own experience, as a Konadaha Seneca living on the Six Nations Reserve in Canada and being a curator, arts administrator, a museum director and a sometime artist. I will attempt to address some issues surrounding cultural centres and the importance of collections and how the community should be foremost in your mind when choices for exhibition and public programming are planned. I make no attempt to be definitive. Rather, I am putting forth my views simply as observations on what I think are important factors in any attempt to understand any community generally, but in my case more specifically a Native American community.

Before I go on, I must tell you about the Woodland Cultural Centre. It is situated on the Six Nations Reserve amidst the last stand of Southern Carolinian Forest in Canada. Situated along the Grand River, it is the most northern tract of land of the Carolinian Forest and satellite pictures of our territory show the forest standing out against surrounding encroaching farms and urbanization. Its history goes back centuries with the Neutral Iroquoians, in fact there are so many archaeological sites in our areas we have been compared to the ancient city of Cairo, Egypt. We are the renown Iroquoian Confederacy made up of Senecas, Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas and Tuscaroras with a few Tutelos, Nanticokes and Delawares.

Our dynamic political history which predates the arrival of Europeans and which straddles both sides of the Canadian/US border is as vibrant today as it once was and our community of 26,000 has diverse political positions.

The Woodland Cultural Centre, a First Nations or Native American Institution was founded in 1972 amidst the rest of national political activism. We needed a neutral space and the space which was designated was first a church run government sanctioned residential school, similar to Carlisle here in the United States. From this standpoint, it is loaded with baggage. We are probably the only Cultural Centre in Canada that has had to establish a support counseling program for past students of the Mohawk Institute returning to our site to convince them that they are welcome to come in to see an exhibit; share a public program, visit our library or just browse our Gift Shop.

Today, 4 communities support the Centre – The Mohawks of Wahta, the New Credit Mississaugas, the Mohawks of Tyendinaga, and the Six Nations of the Grand River. Support communities means that their cultural dollars come to the Centre so that we offer programs. When we begin in 1972, there were 10 support communities but 6 have withdrawn their funds to offer their own programs. The 4 communities make up our Board of Governors.

Besides the administration, we have the library, the Language Department, and the Museum. We have a part time Educational officer, but at one time we also had departments that developed school curriculum, multi-media, tourist development, and product development. Like other institutions, the Centre over the years has been experiencing the same shocks of change such as under funding, needed renovations, getting professional staff, and the high cost of technology and the high cost of exhibits.

Amos Key Jr., our Language Director and staff has done amazing work with our languages. A Cayuga Powwow dancer and Faith Keeper in the Traditional Longhouse, he has recorded all of the ceremonies for a yearly cycle beginning with Mid Winter Rites. This also includes all the songs and dances to correspond with those rituals. He is working on Onondaga. At the moment, those tapes are restricted but I understand they are working out a policy on who will have access to them. Certainly, he has an obligation to the community. His work for language revitalization is crucial. He was instrumental in starting the immersion schools on our reserve and he was one of the founders for the radio station that offers language programs and bingo. He was responsible for change in our community most of the sign on the reserve as well as naming some of the businesses. I might add not all businesses have complied.

His latest project is the building of a theatre and I’m working with him in developing an opera on Joseph Brant which we hope to deliver in 2007. One of our projects, was working on the music for “Kaha:wi” a contemporary dance performance. The music was based on Iroquoian traditional songs but we were careful not to make the music overtly based on traditional sacred songs. It played in New York and Washington this spring and I believe it will be touring this fall, somewhere in the Southwest. Amos has been at the forefront of change.

As indigenous people, we know what profound change is all about – we have to date, survived many waves of it.

History teaches us that technological advances can be a blessing or a curse and sometimes both.

Change can be negative when we do not take charge of it, when we don’t manage change to fit our political and cultural agendas.

Technological change has meant that today at Grand River we are able to record traditional teachings and ceremonies such as the Thanksgiving address or Ganohonyohk and the Great Law on digital discs and CD ROMs in order to preserve our knowledge and culture and to share it with others.

Within the last 20 years, the Cayuga language has gone from an oral language to a written one. Today, computers are being used to teach it in the classroom but I must admit we are not as advanced as you are here in the USA. I know there are those who see this as a positive change; others see it as negative- there is controversy.

One of our respected older women in the community in fact a faith keeper in the longhouse summed up her perspective this way. She said that our first reaction is to keep things a secret – this has been the only way we have kept many of our values and teachings to date.

But she has decided that we must look beyond this feeling.

She feels a responsibility to record as much as possible in her lifetime for the benefit of the future generations. The recordings in fact are proceeding in earnest, as are other efforts to codify traditional healing and other practices.

And there is an incredible demand for this information as many of our own people – more than ever before – want to have access to our language, our history – all that which makes us On gwe hoh weh people.

Technological advances also means, that many indigenous people have options never before available to build a life within their communities without having to go to urban centers. Our business people use the internet highway everyday to reach global markets where just yesterday only Coca Cola and Ford Motor Company could afford to compete.

While new technology has enabled us to exploit new ways to make our voices heard it is a two way street.

Powerful media bombard our communities with values that not only are not our own, but which are contrary to our fundamental principles.

Euro centric values which place individual interests above community interests are communicated relentlessly through powerful images that are intoxicating with the promise of immediate gratification and validation.

Our children are encouraged to adopt values that promote competition, aggressive behaviour, survival of the fittest, and the steady pursuit of wealth in increasingly shorter periods of time.

Rather than focus on the seventh generation as our teachings have told us is our responsibility we are encouraged to make decisions based on the length of the term of President, an elected Chief, or a Prime Minister.

As Ongwehowe of the 21st Century, how can we keep our minds clearly focused on the Original Instructions the Creator has given us?

Do our children even know what this means?

Even among adults, do we respect the diversity this implies?

Do we understand that each one of us has been given special talents and resources and the responsibility to put them to work in the best interests of our people, that each of us is different and each one of us has something of value to contribute in our own way to the world the Creator has made us a part of?

How over the noise of the daily offering of our satellite dishes, the high speed internet, the Imax screen, the cell phone, “surround sound”, IPOD, can we even hear the Creator’s voice?

Or is it, even as some insist, that the game is over, that we are overwhelmingly outnumbered, that we are hopelessly out of date, that there is no room for Ongwehohweh people of the 21st century?

In reply to those options, I say that all cultures change-indeed a culture is only truly alive if it is as dynamic and changing as the landscape against which it lives.

But isn’t it curious that the things so many of us are abandoning are the very things that others are increasingly finding relevant and timely.

Indeed, they are increasingly being sought out and sought after by many other peoples around the world. We must fact the fact that globalization is here to stay.

Like other departments coping with globalization in our institution, our museum has been experiencing the same shock waves of change. However, as we look back over the years, our exhibits have demonstrated extraordinary levels of flexibility, adaptation, and imagination. First Nations Art, our annual art exhibit was created in 1974 to give young First nations artists a first time opportunity to show in a gallery setting. The exhibit has grown to show not only emerging artists but established artists as well whose works deal with a variety of issues, which may or may not be First Nations. Let me put it this way, our art has taken on more global concerns.

Fluffs and Feathers was one of our more popular exhibits that explored stereotypes. Dr. Debra Doxtator was the curator which also explored Hollywood Indians, marketing, cultural tourism, and the notion of Indianness. How we would often adjust our cultural life to accommodate the white tourist. I should point out that Dr. Deborah Doxtator and Lynn Hill both Iroquoian Curators, were curators for another exhibition, Go di’ nogoha, the Women’s Mind, an exploration into the Iroquoian intellectual tradition.

The genesis for “Go di ni goha” centered on the phrase repeated in the Ganohonyohk (Thanksgiving Address) the phrase “Be it so, it remain in your minds”. Besides being an admonition, the phrase also conceptualized the notion that the natural world is integral to our intellectual process. The mind and the land are one. Where I perceived differences in our discussion, was in our individual perspectives, which have been influenced by gender and by history. Our matrilineal tradition was feeling the pressure of acculturation. Our acceptance with women and nature, while at the same time elevating those ideas associated with culture and men. As men, we accepted these western ideas of feminizing the natural world; we could now, as the Bible advocated, take dominion over all of the earth, and of course, women.

These profound changes affected how Iroquoian men and Iroquoian women understood their relationship to land and to one another. It was clear; our discussion group had to continue to investigate these relationships from a woman’s perspective and return to our Iroquoian traditions and philosophy.

Thus, our collaboration installation at the AGO became the inspiration and the compelling force behind the exhibition; hence, Godi’nigoha’ – The Women’s Mind.

Curated by Lynne Hill and the late Dr. Deborah Doxtator, the exhibition was composed of primarily installation work. The exhibition brought together four contemporary Iroquoian women artists, Patricia Deadman, Kelly Green, Shelley Niro and Jolene Rickard. In concert with the contemporary art exhibit, a one-day interdisciplinary symposium was held at the Centre. Iroquoian women lawyers, community members, educators, performers, writers, and artists came together to further explore related questions around our understanding of our traditional relationship to land. It was a resounding success. The four artists’ participation and their work were pivotal to the discussion and we are greatly indebted for their words, their insights, and their art.

The exhibit Mohawk Ideals, Victorian Values: Dr. Oronhyatekha was curated by Keith Jamieson. The exhibition explores Victorian Canada and the perilous journey of Oronhyatekha to seek higher educations, which would eventually lead him to become the Supreme Chief Franger of the Independent Order of Foresters. One aspect of this exhibit is the collection of artifacts that he collected. He was probably the first Native American to create a museum as we know it. We plan to remount using Dr. Oronhyatekha’s original catalogue and labels. This exhibit is a collaborative effort with the Royal Ontario Museum and is scheduled to peon on July 29, 2001. Dr. Oronhyatekah rose to fame and fortune in spite of racial discrimination. Immediately following his death, government policies prohibited Indians from seeking higher education and the repressive legislation, the Indian Act, was applied to all Indians living in Canada.

Exposed: Aesthetics of Aboriginal Erotic Art, a traveling exhibit from the Norman McKenzie Gallery was another exhibit that we thought would cause a sensation in the community. It was encouraged by our artists to present. We anticipated a negative reaction from the community but nothing materialized.

I should point out that our Traditional Longhouse community is very conservative. It’s not that sex is not talked about, it is. Usually between men and men and women with women. But never in a gallery with a mixed group.

The exhibit was created to discuss sexual abuse at residential schools but much of that got lost on more personal approaches to the topic.

Although, we are a museum and the protection and care of the artifacts are paramount, it is in our public programming that we get to act like the Cultural Centre. You have to remember, we are first a cultural centre with a mandate to serve the community and museum, and people take priority. We hosted a T.V. studio, and craft fair, a fashion show-showing traditional design to contemporary, a lecture series, gallery talks, contemporary dance performances as well as more traditional Powwow style, making musical instruments, an art class inspired by Mexican Indian artist, Snowsnake tournament and an archeological dig – and the list goes from poetry to plays and video and film.

Different constituents from the community such as iron workers, artists, church congregations, First Nations Veterans, Mohawks, traditionalists, musicians, children, linguists, Delawares and teachers have all, on occasion, perpetuated their particular point of view at different times in our exhibitions and programs. The museum successfully accommodated those varied constituents and, by doing so created a process that revitalizes and strengthens the community and its culture.

So, how do I define change when its definition is so dependent upon the existence of our sense of identity at a particular point in history? I don’t. I simply try to find the most opportune time that will connect specific people with specific interests to a museum program that will reinforce our shared values, beliefs and aspirations. Timing is paramount. If you miss the opportunity, you probably won’t get another chance for a long time.

Yes, there are risks of offending but we have done there exhibitions and programs not for the purpose to offend a part of community but to enlighten – to teach- and to explore.

Helping our people make these connections is a vital role we play in the museum field. In finding this balance, we are responding to take into account the very real situation that our community finds itself in today.

There is a sense of urgency when First Nations people gather these days: Our communities are losing their cultural readers – the elders, speakers, the faith keepers and with them a bit of knowledge seems to slip away. This situation cries out for attention from each of us-native and non-native alike. Museums in some instances are the last bastion of keeping this culture alive and evolving. Native Alaskan Willie Hensely reminds us that all the tools of economics and politics, although important, cannot save our cultural heritage. Instead, he says, and I quote-“The fact of the matter is that unless we, individually and collectively make up our minds, what are we going to pass onto the spirit of our people in the language expresses that spirit of our traditions and our culture, we are simply not going to survive.”

His words became even more prophetic as we head into a multi media universe and cultural uniqueness becomes even more blurred through technology. We must retain control of our cultural heritage. We must be decision makers of what we collectively want to give to the world and what we want to retain for ourselves and designate sacred and sensitive. We must find balance. Some cultural commentators have pessimistically said to me, “It’s too late”, but if we do nothing, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We owe it to our children, to ourselves, and we owe it to the world. Nya:weh for listening to my last words as the Museum Director at the Woodland Cultural Center.

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