|
|
Article: Preserving native traditions: the National Museum of the American Indian gives Native peoples, scholars permission to claim their voices, share their stories.
- Article from:
- Black Issues in Higher Education
- Article date:
- December 2, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Cox, Matthews & Associates. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
There's a monumental new presence rising above the elm trees on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.,--and it's not like anything else you'll see there. It's as if a vision from an ancient cliff city of the desert Southwest--five stories worth of honey-colored limestone, rough hewn as if by the wind yet flowing like a river of curving cantilevered walls--had been plopped down at the back door of the U.S. Capitol.
The note the building strikes amid the sea of square-cut white marble that surrounds it could be discordant. Could be, but somehow it's not. Somehow, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) sings its own song about man and the natural world ...