WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2004
ARTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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15
Exhibit shows American Indian culture
By John Scheirman
jscheirman@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
An exhibition that opens Sunday at the Spencer Museum of Art will offer more than a collection of art objects. It will also provide insight into the cultures of nine American Indian tribes that inhabited parts of Kansas in the first half of the 19th century.
The exhibition, entitled Vanished Voices: the Legacy of Northeast Kansas Indians, will be available from July 18 to Sept. 19. There will be a family day and public opening from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday. The exhibition, which includes about 50 objects, is being presented in conjunction with the Lawrence sesquicentennial celebration and the annual Lawrence Indian Arts Show.
The exhibition shows the legacy of the northeast Kansas indians, said Joni Murphy, a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Kansas who organized the exhibit along with Andrea S. Norris, former Spencer Museum of Art director.
"I think it's important for everybody to see," said Murphy. "Everyone should remember that before the settlers, this was Indian Territory — they were forcefully removed from here and they had been forcefully removed from somewhere else before they came here."
Many people know that Oklahoma was formerly Indian Territory, but not as many
people realize that parts of Kansas and Nebraska shared that designation, Murphy said.
The exhibit covers time periods from about 1830 to 1850. Most of the American Indians from east of the Mississippi had been forced into American Indian territory, Murphy said. Many of them who relocated to Kansas remained here for less than one generation. The term "vanished," however, does not mean that the tribes no longer exist. Three tribes — the Potawatomi, Kickapoo and Sauk and Fox — continue to occupy small reservations in northeast Kansas.
It is not the people, but their cultures that have largely "vanished" from this area, Murphy said.
In addition to the three tribes remaining in Kansas, additional tribes represented in the show include the Kansa, Delaware, Ottawa, Osage, Shawnee and Kiowa. Memorabilia in the exhibit include moccasins, a wedding blanket, turbans and blouses. There are also some photographs of present day Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, dating back to the 20th century.
Murphy said that because of our rich heritage, we could learn from our history.
"I think that there's always something to be found in our past. Murphysaid. "Artists can look at these objects and learn something from the past."
from Lawrence historian Karl Gridley. Gridley is a member of Lawrence's sesquicentennial commission. "I've always had an interest in the Native Americans of Kansas," Gridley said. "I'm really excited about the show." He said he contacted Murphy and Norris three or four years ago, when the sesquicentennial commission was considering ideas for commemorative events during 2004.
Murphy, who is Creek, from the Muskogee Nation, graduated from Haskell in 1993. She said the idea for the show came
Items on display have been loaned from several sources, including the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka, the Kansas City Museum, Haskell Indiai Nations University and private collections. About half of the objects come from the University of Kansas anthropology collections.
"Spencer borrowed about 26 objects representative of tribes that once occupied the Kansas region," said Mary Adair, interim director/associate curator at the KU museum of anthropology. "Many of these objects have
seldom been on display in the past, providing viewers an opportunity to see a diversity of objects."
At the public opening of Vanished Voices: The Legacy of Northeast Kansas
Indians at 1:15 p.m on Sunday, Tom Spottedhorse of the Haskell Indian Nations University staff will offer a traditional native blessing.
It will be followed at 1:30 by a gallery talk by Murphy. At 7 p.m.on August26 at the Spencer's White Gallery, Murphy will again give a gallery talk. Detailed historical information about the tribes represented in the exhibit will be available in the gallery guide.
General admission tickets are on sale in the KU ticket offices: University Theatre, 864-3982; Lied Center, 864-ARTS; SUA Office, 864-7469; and on-line at kutheatre.com; public $12, all students $6, senior citizens $11; both VISA and Mastercard are accepted for phone and on-line orders. The University Theatre is partially funded by the KU Student Senate Activity Fee. This program is presented in part by the Kansas Arts Commission, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.