

The Passing of the Indians Behind Glass - benbreen
http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-passing-of-the-indians-behind-glass

======
mark_l_watson
This is silly. I live in Arizona, and many of our parks have dioramas that are
very informative about past cultures.

I live in the mountains, and with docents from the forest service I have hiked
to and appreciated about 100 ancient Indian ruin sites. I like to imagine what
life would have been like when I am on site, and I do use mental images from
dioramas.

Hopefully not off topic: I volunteer at a historic farm, and we all get to
grow food for ourselves as a perk for doing __lots __of free work for the
forest service. There is a very old Hopi Indian who has a patch near mine and
it is more than interesting talking with him. He is a shaman and travels a lot
giving talks.

~~~
hawleyal
I wouldn't advise dismissing it so irreverently.

------
mhb
As a glass-window diorama alternative consider the exhibits at the
Mashantucket Pequot museum:

 _The Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center features 85,000 square feet
of permanent, indoor exhibitions including life-size dioramas, films, and
interactive computer programs._

Pequot Village: _Observe daily life in a recreated 16th-century Pequot
village, pre- and post-European contact. Walk among the trees, wigwams, and
people who are cooking, talking, weaving, and working. Hear natural sounds and
smell the aromas of the woodlands and campfires. All the figures were life-
cast from Native American people; the traditional clothing, ornamentations,
and wigwams were made by Native craftspeople._

[http://www.pequotmuseum.org/PermanentExhibits.aspx](http://www.pequotmuseum.org/PermanentExhibits.aspx)

------
a2tech
Its really too bad-the exhibits at the UofM Museum of Natural History (the
museum mentioned in the article) has/had truly beautiful dioramas. Sure they
were old, but they were incredibly detailed and very accurate.

~~~
jobu
The problem, as I understand it, is that the dioramas were dehumanizing to the
point that registered members of the tribes depicted were offended.

At the end of the article they mention the alternative being full-size
recreations that the visitors can touch and interact with. While it limits the
number of displays a museum can offer, I think it does show more respect and
offers more depth to visitors:

 _" For non-Makah visitors, it is a diorama in which the viewer doesn’t
examine the Indian under glass, but takes her place."_

------
ProTip
I grew up in Florida and started school around 1989. We were exposed to a lot
of indian culture all throughout my grade school years.. In fact we were the
"Indians". I remember Indians visiting our school as early as 3rd-4th grade as
a cultural learning opportunity. We also learned about the trail of tears, the
reservations, and yes we saw the exhibits.

I find this a bit of a shame as I really enjoyed those dioramas myself as a
kid. I'm not sure anyone would argue that the Indians did not have an
"ancient" way of life when the Europeans came.. To me this feels like just
pushing the fact that we destroyed their way of life under the rug.

------
hammock
What if instead of taking down the Indians Behind Glass, we created more
modern scenes behind glass? Like a UN general assembly, or Oktoberfest, or a
military base in Afghanistan? That would be super cool.

~~~
morley
It would make more sense to have such dioramas in a museum of human history,
but I understand dioramas of indigenous people who still exist today not
having a place in a natural history museum.

~~~
PeterisP
The 19th century Indian culture depicted in those dioramas _is_ extinct now
and definitely does have a place in a history museum - in exactly the same
manner as the (now extinct) 19th century white American frontier town culture
or the (now extinct) 19th century Bavarian farmer culture.

The fact that there are living descendants of all those cultures, and some of
them [try to] follow traditional aspects of this culture does not diminish the
historical value of illustrations about the culture as it was back thin.

There may be valid reasons to remove exhibits - for example, if the depictions
are misleading and based on assumptions now known to be false; or if the
depictions are irrelevant and boring. But if some people are offended by their
own history, then that's not a reason worth considering, much less acting on
it - if the depiction is factually accurate (which, as much as I understood
from the article, isn't disputed), then it should stay.

If the current treatment seems unfair, then producing more relevant dioramas
of the other cultures would be a reasonable response - such exhibits can be
very effective illustrations about all the "non-native" populations as well.

------
ghshephard
The only thing that I could think of was trying to imagine what the Museum
Dioramas will be like once the third or fourth generation of consumer VR rolls
out?

------
bugsbunnyak
Excellent policy: now non-indigenous sub/urbanites can learn about indigenous
history from `Pocahontas` and `Dances with Wolves` instead.

------
chetanahuja
As an Indian, this headline intrigued me to draw a click. Then I realized that
the article was about Native Americans and this usage, as always, filled me
with a mild rage for a few seconds. Is it really that hard to just use a non-
confusing term for native americans in written language now that it's clear
that India is somewhere else on the globe altogether?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VMY8X9rU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9VMY8X9rU8)

~~~
eitally
The simple answer is no. The longer answer is yes, but ... it would confuse
more people that it would help. When you start throwing around terms like
aboriginal X or native X, you're getting somewhere re: clarity. However, when
the term is modifying an ambiguous locator like "American" it makes it worse
again. To United States citizens, "American" means them, but (I can't speak
for Canadians, not ever having had this conversation with any) all my friends
in Brazil, Chile and Mexico consider themselves American, too, and they are.

"Indian" to mean indigenous United States tribes is a cop out but it is by far
the simplest way for writers to refer to these diverse groups without having
to get deep into technical explanations.

p.s. Besides, it isn't our fault the Europeans were shitty navigators. :)

~~~
chetanahuja
_" The longer answer is yes, but ... it would confuse more people that it
would help."_

Can you describe a scenario where replacing the word "Indian" with "Native-
American" in the headline of this article will confuse more people than the
original version? None of what you said to support your assertion seems to
make that case.

