Exhibits based on Native intellectual traditions

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Gerald McMaster, a Siksika member who grew up on the Red Pheasant reserve in Saskatchewan, occupies a senior position at the newly opened National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in the United States capital city.

Previously, McMaster was the curator-in-charge of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Que. He is also a well-known artist.

Now, as special assistant to the director for mall exhibitions, McMaster has opened the doors for other Canadian Aboriginal people and communities to be a part of this ambitious American project.

Four days before the official Sept. 21 opening of the NMAI, Foreign Affairs Canada donated a work by Sto:lo artist Susan Point that will be a prominent feature of the museum's main floor, located near the central rotunda. The work is a two-metre-high cedar sculpture entitled "The Beaver and the Mink." It is inspired by Coast Salish stories about beavers and mink bringing salmon to the rivers.

Point and family members and Dene Secretary of State for youth Ethel Blondin Andrew were in the museum for the presentation ceremony.

McMaster said he suggested the idea of having a major Canadian work of art in a central place in the museum to NMAI director Richard West several years ago.

"He wholeheartedly agreed and immediately contacted [Canadian] Ambassador [to the U.S. Michael] Kergin. He told the ambassador that Canada had always been a good friend to the museum, especially to those in our New York facility, the George Gustav Heye Centre. He also remarked about the great representation that Canada has in our collection, our exhibitions and especially our staff," McMaster said." So here we are today celebrating this gift now located in a centralized space within the museum where millions every year will be able to view it." He called the sculpture an "astounding work."

"This past year, Susan was the recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for her contribution in the area of Canadian contemporary Indian art. At the time of the award, I was asked to say something about her work. What I said then is what I still believe. Susan has single-handedly post Coast Salish art on the map. Her work in glass and other material has carried the popular northern style Northwest Coast art ... to a new level of beauty and contemporaniety," he said.

"As the great American architect I M Pei once said, 'The essence is the only thing that can last. Otherwise it's transitory or it's a fashion.' In Susan's work we can see the essence come through again and again."

The artist said her culture prevented her from speaking on her own behalf.

"I'm a woman of few words and I really don't have much to say but I'd just like to mention that in our Salish culture, in situations of this nature where it directly affects you, we're not allowed to speak on our own behalf," she said.

Salish Elder Larry Grant was pleased to speak for her.

"It's customary in our society that someone else does all the speaking for you and does all the accolades for you. Otherwise, you are a very presumptuous person to be saying I am who I am," he explained.

"She would just like to thank Canada for allowing her to be the artist of choice to do this wonderful work to show to the world finally that we have a huge Salish representation here in the Smithsonian Institute and the National Museum of the American Indian. With that, she would raise her hands to all of you and thank you all for being here and allowing her to be humble."

Later, in the Patron's Lounge on the NMAI's 4th floor, Gerald McMaster explained how a Saskatchewan boy from an Alberta band came to be doing such an important job in such an influential city.

"It certainly began when I was working at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College [now First Nations University of Canada] and they were looking for a curator of contemporary art in Ottawa. This was around 1980, 1981.

They had a national competition for the position nd I was encouraged to apply and I eventually won the position. So I'd been there since 1981 and left in 2000, almost 20 years. I came here in 2000. It was quite by accident I became a curator. My background is an artist and I always worked with artist;, I taught art," he said.

Does he see his success to be an inspiration to other Native people?

"Well, certainly. When you think that Indian people can now become academics and scholars and not only just in a Western sense of academics and scholarship but we now have to go back into our own cultures and traditions and histories and understand what the basis of those are," he said. "To look at our philosophical roots and underpinnings and try to understand what is our intellectual tradition. Some people say, 'Oh, you have an intellectual tradition?' Well, we do. I think the exhibitions, which you'll see are largely based on our intellectual traditions and I hope that's what the public will see. So young Indian people now certainly should be encouraged. There's now a growing number of academics that can really help challenge and question and give the questions to the students to go after. What are the great questions we need to ask? One is, of course, What is a Native intellectual tradition?

"You have to understand it. Where do you find it? What is it? And who's practicing it? In my work as a curator, those are questions I have to ask as well."

Knowing your own culture is just a start, he added.

"You have to, as an Indian scholar, not only know yourself as a Native person in your culture, but you should get outside of it. Learn about the diversity, the plurality of our cultures that exist out there and to understand them. Because sometimes there are relationships that we all have and sometimes there are tremendous differences. So it is trying to understand what that is all about," he said.

He was asked if it was accurate to conclude that a disproportionate number of Native people are artists compared t the mainstream North American population and, if so, why.

"I remember going into an Inuit community and somebody said, 'Man, the whole community are artists,'" he said, laughing. "I think it's a pride in what you look like and I think we've sort of lost that and I think it's still around but I think there's a pride in the aesthetics of where we live in. You know? It's a pride in understanding the world around and articulating it. I think people are now coming to understand that more. I think there's a sense of a philosophical basis for understanding that.

"So I think the set up is somehow primed for Native people to take up the visual arts, to take up some kind of aesthetic side of life. And I think the Indian people are starting to understand what aesthetics are and how does that work out and how does it establish the framework of the cultures. I think it's significant. I think Indian people really understand that. It's such an important part of our lives. But we lost that in many ways and now people are wanting to get it back."

His earlier use of the IM Pei quote seemed to be a suggestion that art is essentially about a search for the truth.

"Exactly. There's foundational values that we live by and I think that that's why Indians are trying to search for their foundational values, recover those values, recover the essences. Then you have a foundation from which to grow," he said. "And I think that there's a simplicity to that that we can all live by. You don't have to have all sorts of complexity in our lives. There's a simplicity that we have and I think, as an architect like I M Pei or any other architect or artist searches for what is that."

Four days later, the big day finally arrived. The National Mall in downtown Washington was jammed with some 80,000 people on the morning of Sept. 21. Close to 25,000 Indigenous people from throughout the Americas and beyond celebrated the opening of the Smithsonian Institute's newest museum with a spectaculr procession down the middle of the Mall.

As was the case with the presentation of Susan Point's sculpture, the Canadian influence was hard to miss all week long. The design of the building is unmistakably the work of Alberta Aboriginal architect Douglas Cardinal.

He designed the building but parted ways with the museum after a dispute. He refused to attend the opening.

The Canadian Embassy got into the spirit of the opening, screening Canadian Aboriginal films throughout six days of celebrations. An Aboriginal art display compiled by the Canada Council was also available for visitors to tour in the embassy.

There are four direction stones that come from Native communities in the Americas placed around the site of the NMAI. The northern stone is from the Northwest Territories. Forty grandfather rocks are placed throughout the grounds. They come from Aylmer, Que. Before the rocks were moved to Washington, a group from the Montagnais Nation held a blessing ceremony to ensure that the rocks would have a safe journey and carry the cultural messages of past generations to future generations.

St. Laurent Metis from Manitoba showed up in large number to celebrate their inclusion in the museum. The St. Laurent fiddlers participated in the procession and performed at the Canadian Embassy, located just a block or two from the new museum. Their way of life is celebrated with an exhibit that includes an old Bombardier snowmobile, the kind the St. Laurent Metis use to cope with northern Manitoba winters.

Exhibits related to the communities of Kahnawake and Sagkeeng cover Canadian First Nations and there's an Inuit exhibit that features an Inukshuk made out of television monitors .