Osage Museum Curator Selected for Fellowship
Hallie Winter, Osage Nation Museum Curator (Photo Courtesy: Hallie Winter)
Published March 25, 2017
PAWHUSKA, OKLAHOMA – Osage Nation Museum (ONM) Curator Hallie Winter was selected among several hundreds to receive a fellowship to attend the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Annual Meeting and Museum Expo in St. Louis, MO, from May 7, 2017 to May 10, 2017. Attending the event is critical to the progressive development of the museum’s efforts to become fully accredited by the AAM. In addition to valuable networking and information, Winter will be presenting at the annual meeting and expo about her experiences as the curator of ONM and how she and her staff have creatively maximized limited resources to update the museum and effectively preserve and protect the museum’s unique collections.
Winter said this year’s Museum Expo theme is, “Gateways for Understanding: Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion at museums.” She added, “I am proud to be going there to represent not only the Osage Museum but tribal museums in general. I think a lot of times with national museum organizations, it’s easy for smaller museums and especially tribal museums to get lost in the shuffle.”
The AAM travel fellowship Winter was selected for is highly competitive and required an essay about why it was important for her to be able to attend. In her essay she wrote, “I believe [the theme] is essential to tribal museum operations and survival. Tribal museums must combat many of these issues: diversity in representation; equity in point of view; accessibility in content; and inclusion in story-telling.”
At the Museum Expo Winter will be presenting a session titled Museum Rehab: Starting Over at the Osage Nation Museum. The $750 fellowship award from AAM will support her efforts to attend and present on this topic to a national audience of her peers.
Aho friends.
Museums, mining companies and the public in general just plain old don’t have understanding of indigenous Peoples. The destruction of sacred sites is well known throughout the world and the obscenity continues as I write.
Granted, the curiosity of different cultures is intriguing however, that is no reason to “mine” their bones, steal the riches of their progeny and then place them on display for the uninitiated to gawk at. The wholesale destruction and thivery of burial grounds throughout the United States and the world by the ignorant and “curious” in inexcusable.
Understand?
Using modern technologies more than can expected by the brute force that was used in the past decades of inculturation of People who have been here for 20,000 years (some are saying double that). Also, to say that the First People’s used the Bering Straights is dubious at best. Why? Because it’s much easier to navigate on boats than sleds! Not only that but the REASON FOR MIGRATION WAS TO FOLLOW The Food Sources which were fish and sea mammals. They probably didn’t go east in a wagon train! I’m not sure why this is so difficult to understand, but they have their own suppositions and delusions about other cultures.
While the legacy of The People may or may not be known but the legacy if these novices and thieves to Aboriginal Peoples is clear.
Drink no poisoned water, eat no poisoned food and breath no poisoned air. It’s not good for you, your family and animals. Be generous, honest and vigilant in your dealings. Love and cherish each other and your animals every day. Honor and respect the spirits of your ancestors as you journey through life.
Please return the stuff of history that doesn’t belong to you. For the Earth will not rest until you do. Come in love and joy when you do, then we can be a peace with each other and ourselves.
I stand with The People of Standing Rock.
I stand with The People of Puerto Rico.
I stand with The People of the Aleutian Islands.
I’m too old to run and hide so I’ll just have to stand up and dance.
izopnyde