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Wednesday, Aug. 19, 1987/University Daily Kansan
KU museums offer many countries' history, culture
Top-ranked museums feature animals and artifacts from around world
Jan M. Morris/KANSAN
A pot made by the Zuni Indians of New Mexico, a mask from west Africa, a boomerang from Australia and a pair of beaded moccasins from the Eastern
By KATHI POLCAR Special to the Kansan
At KU's Museum of Natural History, a panorama of North American plants and animals stretches across the main floor.
Today, a small band of Indian warriors has come to stalk game, mark the trail and hunt for berries and medicinal herbs.
One youth, spotting a white rabbit,
has drawn his bow and arrow. He shoots,
crouches, waits, then jumps
up with a loud war cry. It was his
first kill. He has become a man.
Actually, the Indians are dancers who have come to improvise in the wide hallway, using the panorama for their set.
The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Anthropology, offer a myriad of opportunities for inand out-of-class learning to those interested in nature and culture.
The Museum of Natural History, in Dyche Hall on Jayhawk Boulevard and 14th Street, is ranked as one of the top four university natural history museums in the country, Cathy Dwigans, associate director for membership and public relations, said.
Countless animals, including a woodpecker, big horn sheep and mountain lion, stand in a replication of native land with boulders, wild grasses, bushes and trees. Fluffy clouds are scattered in the blue sky, illuminated by diffused sunlight.
Other popular exhibits include the live bee hive, which allows bees to go outdoors through a clear plastic tunnel, the collection of 38 live poisonous and non-poisonous Kansas snakes, and the horse Comanche, preserved by the museum's first curator, L.L. Dyche.
Comanche, a U.S. 7th Cavalry horse, was the only survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June 1876 between the 7th Cavalry, led by Col. George Custer, and some Sioux Indians at Little Bighorn, Mont.
After the battle, the horse was brought to Fort Riley, Kan., and lived there until its death in 1891.
Some soldiers asked Dyche to mount Camonacle, and now the horse stands in a specially humidified glass case on the fifth floor. Pictures of
Dyche's unfinished work are displayed along with enlarged photos of some of the Indian warriors, some dating to the 1870s.
Entomological Museum in Snow Hall, the Museum of Invertebrate Paleontology in Lindley Hall and the Herbarium on West Campus and at the Museum of Natural History.
The museum has 150 exhibits, but KU's natural history collections include more than five million biolog-
woodland Indians are some of the articles the Museum of Anthropology uses in its exhibits.
Museum scientists conduct field research continually, with the help of
ical specimens, ranging from large mammals to insects to invertebrate fossils to plants.
Most of these specimens are used for research by the museum staff, faculty, and graduate students. The specimens are housed in the Snow
students in some courses, and students are welcome in the museum's public events and Weekend Workshops, she said.
The Museum of Natural History is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
"The museum is a part of college education — a backdrop for class work, informal education or entertainment." Dwigans said.
"We have people who visit week after week, spend an hour, then feel compelled to come back and immerse themselves in a new part of the museum."
Directly across from the museum on Jayhawk Boulevard, the brick and coral-colored Romanesque-style Spooner Hall has housed the Museum of Anthropology since 1978.
"Whoso findeth wisdom, findeth life," the facade reads. The building built in 1894 originally housed the KU library.
"People think anthropology has no significance to them, but it helps provide meaning to our own life through study of other cultures," said Alfred E. Johnson, director of the museum and professor of anthropology.
The anthropology collection specializes in North American Indian, Eskimo, African, Oceanian (including Hawaiian) and South American Indian objects.
The museum's permanent exhibit, "What is it to be human?" leads the visitor through the universal human life cycle, birth to death. The items on display demonstrate the complex system of technology, ideology, social organization and language that create a culture, Johnson said.
Photographs of typical Kansas places and life events — a church, a 4-H livestock competition, a baptism, a wedding, a cemetery — provide a frame of reference for the foreign, sometimes ancient, objects.
KU
STUDENTS
THE
KANSAS CITY
STAR/Times
NEWSPAPER has a
Special Student Discount Rate
HALF PRICE!!!!!!!!
FALL SEMESTER - 87 Aug. 19 - Dec. 17, 1987
$22.88 morning evening Sunday
This price includes consideration for non-delivery when classes are suspended for holidays, breaks and other periods when service is not requested. DELIVERY TO BEGIN WITHIN THREE WORKING DAYS OF PAYMENT, which can be made in person at the local office at
932 Mass. St., Lawrence, KS, 843-1611.
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WHEN YOU ADVERTISE IN THE KANSAN!
"My friends tell me I spend too much time with dingbats."
Bill Skeet labors over a Macintosh computer into the wee hours of the morning designing University Daily Kansan graphics so that what you see illuminated in the news stories is illustrated, too. When it comes to design and composition on a computer, he knows the tricks. And he knows the tools, including zapf dingbats, a slick piece of programming that provides 70 typographical symbols used in desktop publishing.
He likes being published. He's proud of
He's handy with a pencil, pen and ink, too. But the Macintosh has really captured his imagination. To Bill it represents an intriguing marriage of technology and art that has put the Kansan at the forefront of change in presenting the news in print.
his work. That's why so much of it graces the walls of the Kansan's computer room.
Bill's job may sound like a lot of keyboards and computers to you, but it's an art to him. He cares about his art. He cares about the Kansan. But most of all, he cares about doing a good job for you.
Nobody else speaks your language.