Donna House

Last updated

Donna House (born c. 1953/1954) is a Navajo Nation ethnobotanist and a contributing designer of the National Museum of the American Indian.

House was born in Washington, D.C., where her father was a guard at The Pentagon, and grew up on the Navajo Nation Reservation at Oak Springs and later Fort Defiance, Arizona. [1] [2] She states that she is "of the Towering House People Clan of the Diné and Turtle Clan of the Oneida". [1] House was born into a family of nine children and raised by traditional Navajo values. [2] She went to the University of Utah and became the first person from Oak Springs to graduate from university. [2] House initially read molecular biology and wanted to become a doctor, however she then changed major to environmental science to investigate the relationships between people and the land around them. [1] [2] She is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. [3]

In the summer of 1984 The Nature Conservancy (TNC) Science Division signed a contract with the Navajo Nation to create the Navajo Natural Heritage Program, to hire, train and supervise staff for several years until the Nation's Division of Fish and Wildlife could incorporate it in its budget. The program became part of the national network TNC's Science Division was creating. Donna was hired as the initial head of the program and also its botanist. Her eight years of botanical work involved data gathering and seeking to protect native plants, especially those which were endangered but of importance to the tradition of indigenous people. [1] This included efforts to find habitats of Kearney's blue star, one of the rarest flowers in Arizona, located on lands of the Tohono Oʼodham. [2]

For eleven years House was on the planning committee at the Smithsonian Institution for the construction of the National Museum of the American Indian. [1] She represented her native nations, alongside colleagues from other tribes including Douglas Cardinal, Johnpaul Jones, Ramona Sakiestewa and Lou Weller. [4] [5] Her main contributions to the project included positioning the building entrance to face away from the main road and towards the East to align with the movement of the sun and elements of the solar calendar. [1] Additionally House found and cultivated 189 native plant genera for the gardens surrounding the museum, arranged to represent four microcosms representing old habitats of the area; upland hardwood forest, eastern meadowlands, traditional croplands and lowland freshwater wetlands (a homage to Tiber Creek which runs beneath the site). [1] All the land and seeds used were blessed before being incorporated into the construction. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navajo Nation</span> Federally recognized tribe in the Southwest United States

The Navajo Nation, also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in Window Rock, Arizona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Museum of the American Indian</span> Museum in Washington, D.C.

The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diné College</span> Tribal college on the Navajo Nation

Diné College is a public tribal land-grant college based in Tsaile, Arizona, serving the 27,000-square-mile (70,000 km2) Navajo Nation. It offers associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, academic certificates, and one master's degree.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Dodge Wauneka</span> Navajo Nation activist (1910–1997)

Annie Dodge Wauneka was an influential member of the Navajo Nation as member of the Navajo Nation Council. As a member and three term head of the council's Health and Welfare Committee, she worked to improve the health and education of the Navajo. Wauneka is widely known for her countless efforts to improve health on the Navajo Nation, focusing mostly on the eradication of tuberculosis within her nation. She also authored a dictionary, in which translated English medical terms into the Navajo language. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by Lyndon B. Johnson as well as the Indian Council Fire Achievement Award and the Navajo Medal of Honor. She also received an honorary doctorate in Humanities from the University of New Mexico. In 2000, Wauneka was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navajo</span> Native American people of the Southwestern United States

The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language.

Anna Lee Walters is a Pawnee/Otoe–Missouria author.

Elizabeth Woody is an American Navajo/Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama artist, author, and educator. In March 2016, she was the first Native American to be named poet laureate of Oregon by Governor Kate Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harrison Begay</span> American painter (1914/17–2012)

Harrison Begay, also known as Haashké yah Níyá was a renowned Diné (Navajo) painter, printmaker, and illustrator. Begay specialized in watercolors, gouache, and silkscreen prints. At the time of his death in 2012, he was the last living, former student of Dorothy Dunn and Geronima C. Montoya at the Santa Fe Indian School. His work has won multiple awards and is exhibited in museums and private collections worldwide and he was among the most famous Diné artists of his generation.

Evelyne E. Bradley was an American Navajo judge. She served as a district judge for the Navajo Nation from 1984 until her retirement in 1995. Bradley was one of the first women to become a judge within the Navajo Nation.

Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches courses in Native American Studies with an emphasis on race, class, and gender. She is the director of the University of New Mexico's Institute for American Research. She also specializes in Navajo history and culture and the effects of colonization and decolonization as it has impacted the Navajo people. She is the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission. Denetdale is also an advocate for students who wish to pursue an education in Indigenous studies, Navajo women, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Tom B.K. Goldtooth is a Native American environmental, climate, and economic justice activist, speaker, film producer, and Indigenous rights leader. He is active at local, national, and international levels as an advocate for building healthy and sustainable Indigenous communities based upon the foundation of Indigenous traditional knowledge. Goldtooth has served as executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) since 1996 after serving as a member of the IEN National Council since 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlyle Begay</span> American politician

Carlyle W. Begay is a Diné-American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he represented the seventh district in the Arizona State Senate which is the largest Legislative State District in the Continental United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esther Belin</span> Diné multimedia artist and writer

Esther Belin, who has work published under Esther G. Belin, is a Diné multimedia artist, writer, poet, writing instructor, and addiction counselor. The Before Columbus Foundation chose From the Belly of My Beauty for the American Book Award after the book was published in 1999. She was one of the editors of The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature that was published in 2021. It is on the Lists of Best Books, 2010-2023 of the American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iva Casuse Honwynum</span> Hopi American craftswoman and social activist (born 1964)

Iva Casuse Honwynum is a Hopi/Navajo artist, social activist, and cultural practitioner. A Native American, Honwynum is best known for her woven baskets and figurative sculpture. Honwynum's most important breakthrough was the development of the pootsaya basket, called "a rare innovation in Hopi basketry". She developed the pootsaya during her 2014 residency at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, having been awarded the Eric and Barbara Dookin Artist Fellowship.

Melissa Cody is a Navajo textile artist from No Water Mesa, Arizona, United States. Her Germantown Revival style weavings are known for their bold colors and intricate three dimensional patterns. Cody maintains aspects of traditional Navajo tapestries, but also adds her own elements into her work. These elements range from personal tributes to pop culture references.

Sunny Dooley is a Diné storyteller born into the Saltwater Clan and born from the Water's Edge Clan. She shares Hane', or Diné Blessingway stories, and is a former Miss Navajo Nation, having won the title in 1982.

Nancy Cottrell Maryboy is a Cherokee and Navajo Indigenous science expert and educator. Maryboy is the president of the Indigenous Education Institute, an organization she founded in 1995 to apply traditional Indigenous knowledge to contemporary settings. Much of her work has focused on Indigenous astronomy and she has written several books on Navajo astronomy.

Sam Ahkeah was a former Navajo Nation Chairman. He was elected as the 7th chairman of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council. He served in office from 1946 through 1954 and was elected to serve for two terms. Ahkeah served as an overseer for the Mesa Verde National Park. During his time in office, Chairman Ahkeah met with the United States Congress to discuss the Colorado River Storage Project. Ahkeah advocated for the Colorado River Storage Project because it would benefit the Navajo Nation.

Marilou Schultz is a Navajo weaver, artist, and educator. She has exhibited her weavings nationally and internationally, including at the documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany.

Susan Hudson is an American and Navajo Nation quilter. A 2024 National Heritage Fellow, she works on ledger art quilts with historical narratives, focusing on Navajo history.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Waring, Belle (2007-01-26). "Diné/Oneida Ethnobotanist Speaks on Birth of a Museum" (PDF). NIH Record.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Brown, Patricia Leigh (2004-09-09). "A Native Spirit, Inside the Beltway". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-07-30.
  3. ↑ "Virtual Event Transcription" (PDF). WhiteHouse.gov . Retrieved 2024-05-26.
  4. ↑ "Indian Museum Suit Settled". Washington Post. 1999-10-27. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2019-07-30.
  5. ↑ "Places that Work: National Museum of the American Indian". Metropolis. 2012-04-25. Retrieved 2019-07-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.