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.
Museology is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education.
We-Sorts is a name for a group of Native Americans in Maryland who are from the Piscataway tribe. It is regarded as derogatory and a pejorative by some, and rarely used by the current younger generation. The Piscataway were powerful at the time of European encounter. Many individuals with the surnames Proctor, Newman, Savoy, Queen (name), Butler, Thompson, Swann, Gray, and Harley claim that Native heritage. Many are notably of a mixed race between black, white and Native American. "Some members of the Piscataway Indian groups now consider the name Wesort derogatory." Historian Frank Sweet lists "Wesorts" as among a group of "derogatory epithets given by mainstream society, not self-labels". However, "Wesort" is listed as a self-identified "Other race" on the 2000 United States Census.
Turkey Tayac, legally Philip Sheridan Proctor (1895–1978), was a Piscataway leader and herbal medicine practitioner; he was notable in Native American activism for tribal and cultural revival in the 20th century. He had some knowledge of the Piscataway language and was consulted by the Algonquian linguist, Ives Goddard, as well as Julian Granberry.
The Piscataway Indian Nation, also called Piscatawa, is a state-recognized tribe in Maryland that is descended from the historic Piscataway people. At the time of European encounter, the Piscataway was one of the most populous and powerful Native polities of the Chesapeake Bay region, with a territory on the north side of the Potomac River. By the early seventeenth century, the Piscataway had come to exercise hegemony over other Algonquian-speaking Native American groups on the north bank of the river. The Piscataway nation declined dramatically before the nineteenth century, under the influence of colonization, infectious disease, and intertribal and colonial warfare.
The Piscataway or Piscatawa, are Native Americans. They spoke Algonquian Piscataway, a dialect of Nanticoke. One of their neighboring tribes, with whom they merged after a massive decline of population following two centuries of interactions with European settlers, called them the Conoy.
Always Becoming is an artwork created in 2007 by Nora Naranjo-Morse, a Native American potter and poet. The artwork groups five sculptures made with natural materials, which allows them to gradually change over time. The National Museum of the American Indian selected and commissioned the artwork to be exhibited at one of its entrances in 2006.
The Nacotchtank were an indigenous Algonquian people who lived in the area of what is now Washington, D.C., during the 17th century. The Nacotchtank village was within the modern borders of the District of Columbia along the intersection of the Potomac and the Anacostia river.
Shelley Niro is a Mohawk filmmaker and visual artist from New York and Ontario. She is known for her photographs using herself and female family members cast in contemporary positions to challenge the stereotypes and clichés of Native American women.
America Meredith is a painter, curator, educator, and editor of First American Art Magazine. America Meredith is an artist and comes from a Swedish-Cherokee background who blends pop imagery from her childhood with European and Native American styles.
Pablita Abeyta was a Native American activist and sculptor born in Gallup, New Mexico, United States. She is the eldest daughter of Sylvia Ann (Shipley) Abeyta and artist Narciso Abeyta. She was named for her grandmother and her name Navajo name translates to "One Who Completes a Circle." Her family was originally from the Cañoncito Band of the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, located west of Albuquerque. In 2000 the reservation decided to change its name to To'Hajiilee.
The history of Native Americans in Baltimore and what is now Baltimore dates back at least 12,000 years. As of 2014, Baltimore is home to a small Native American population, centered in East Baltimore. The majority of Native Americans now living in Baltimore belong to the Lumbee, Piscataway, and Cherokee peoples. The Piscataway people live in Southern Maryland and are recognized by the state of Maryland. The Lumbee and Cherokee are Indigenous to North Carolina and neighboring states of the Southeastern United States. Many of the Lumbee and Cherokee migrated to Baltimore during the mid-20th century along with other migrants from the Southern United States, such as African-Americans and white Appalachians. The Lumbee are state recognized in North Carolina as the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, but have no state recognition in Maryland. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina are a federally recognized tribe. There are three state recognized tribes in Maryland; the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe of Maryland, the Piscataway Indian Nation and Tayac Territory, and the Accohannock Indian Tribe. Maryland has no federally recognized tribes.
Jolene Rickard, born 1956, citizen of the Tuscarora Nation, Turtle clan, is an artist, curator and visual historian at Cornell University, specializing in indigenous peoples issues. Rickard co-curated two of the four permanent exhibitions for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Skawennati is a Mohawk multimedia artist, best known for her online works as well as Machinima that explore contemporary Indigenous cultures, and what Indigenous life might look like in futures inspired by science fiction. She served as the 2019 Indigenous Knowledge Holder at McGill University. In 2011, she was awarded an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship which recognized her as one of "the best and most relevant native artists."
Tracy Rector is an American filmmaker, curator, and arts advocate based in Seattle, Washington. She is the executive director and co-founder of Longhouse Media, an Indigenous and POC media arts organization and home of the nationally acclaimed program Native Lens. She has worked as an education consultant at the Seattle Art Museum, as a native naturalist for the Olympic Sculpture Park, and has developed curriculum for IslandWood, an environmental education center.
Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe curator, artist and educator based in Toronto, Ontario. From 2016 to 2023, she held the position of the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Indigenous peoples of Maryland are the tribes who historically and currently live in the land that is now the State of Maryland in the United States of America. These tribes belong to the Northeastern Woodlands, a cultural region.
Patricia Marroquin Norby is the associate curator of Native American art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On September 14, 2020, she became the first full-time person of Indigenous descent hired for a curatorial position in the museum's 150-year history. Her Purépecha and Apache heritage has influenced her art since she was a young girl. She has worked for several museums and curated art of indigenous people, thoughtfully considering the lives of the artists and to faithfully present their art, breaking down past practices used by European Americans.
The Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland is a Native American tribe recognized by the state of Maryland. They are a part of the Piscataway people.
The local history of Native Americans in Washington, D.C., dates back at least 4,000 years.
