National American Indian museum opens

WASHINGTON -- As a child, William Walker was sent off to boarding school and forbidden to speak his native Mono Indian tribe language. So it was with a sense of vindication that Walker watched colorful pageantry of Indian culture mark Tuesday's opening of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, located at the foot of the Capitol.\n"This represents freedom, recognition," said Walker, 75, whose tribe is from central California. "It's long overdue."\nWalker joined thousands of Indians from Alaska to South America in a half-mile procession along the National Mall. The flags, feathers and bright native clothing made for a multicolored display, and the air was filled with the smell of burned sage and the sounds of drums, bells and music.\nMuseum officials estimated the crowd at 30,000 to 40,000 people. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, who sponsored the Senate bill authorizing the museum, said he was motivated by a sense that Indians had been unrecognized in the nation's capital.\n"In this city of monuments, there was no statue, no monument, honoring the first Americans," Inouye said. "This monument to the first Americans is long overdue."\nSmithsonian Institution Secretary Larry Small said the museum will be around for generations of American Indians to enjoy.\n"And that is a promise that we will keep," Small said. \nApplause rang through the air as Indians recognized a reference -- deliberate or not -- to promises the U.S. government had made and then broken to Indian tribes in the past.\nRep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and member of the Chickasaw Nation, read a statement from President George W. Bush calling the museum "a powerful reminder of the spirit, pride and vitality of our native peoples."\nDirector Richard West, wearing a Cheyenne Indian headdress, added a few thoughts of his own. \n"Today Native America takes its rightful place on the National Mall in the very shadow of the nation's Capitol building itself," West said. \nThe Capitol provided a stunning visual backdrop to the speakers at the dedication ceremony. Paul Brown, a 58-year-old member of the Pocomoke tribe from Maryland's Eastern shore, said he found the juxtaposition "funny."\n"The government has never been overly pleasant to Indian people," Brown said, dressed in full Indian garb, with 32 feathers hanging off his belt.\nStephen Adkins, 58, chief of the Chickahominy tribe outside Richmond, Va., said the museum reflects more than Indian history.\n"People think of museums as history and the past, but I look at it as who we are today," Adkins said, wearing a full headdress of turkey feathers. "We're doctors, lawyers, teachers and blue-collar workers."\nNicole Soulier, a 19-year-old Ojibwa from Bad River, Wis., wore a blue dress with 365 metal "jingles," one for each day of the year, and an eagle's feather on her head.\n"It's very important to represent where I came from, to celebrate with all the other nations," she said.\nNot everyone was in a celebratory mood. The American Indian Movement, a sometimes militant group, issued a statement claiming the museum failed to display "the sordid and tragic history of America's holocaust against the native nations and peoples of the Americas."\nThe museum's design is unlike any other structure in Washington's wealth of monuments and museums. Built at a cost of $214 million, the sweeping lines represent a communing with nature as the country's tribal peoples did.\nIt houses 8,000 objects from across the Western Hemisphere. Four million visitors a year are expected to see the museum's movies and music; paintings, photographs and sculptures; masks, weapons and animals; jewelry and medals; even food and plants.\nBefore the procession, the mall was filled with Indians dancing to drumbeats and traditional music. A group of five White Mountain Apache Indians from White River, Ariz., added to the drumbeat with shaking metal balls around their shoes. Four had their chests painted black with white lettering while the fifth was painted white with black lettering. Wooden headgear reached two feet above their heads, which were covered in masks.\nNearby, Aztec Indians from San Francisco danced with feathers stretching six feet above their heads. The museum opened to the public in the afternoon, and musicians, dancers and storytellers began the First Americans Festival, which will last the rest of the week. The museum is open overnight the first night to handle the crowds.