Listening to our ancestors
Subtitle: the art of native life along the north pacific coast
By: introduction by chief  Robert Joseph
Contributors: Joseph, Robert, 1939-; National Museum of the American Indian (U.S.); National Geographic Society (U.S.)
Publisher: National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution in association with National Geographic
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 191
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Material culture -- Northwest Coast of North America; Indians of North America -- Northwest Coast of North America -- Antiquities; Indian philosophy -- Northwest Coast of North America; Indian cosmology -- Northwest Coast of North America; Northwest Coast of North America -- Antiquities
Description: Publisher description: Illustrated with never-before-published artifacts from the unique treasures in the museum's Northwest Coast collections, Listening to Our Ancestors profiles native communities of the Pacific Northwest and showcases the region's rich cultural history and artwork. Sophisticated in conception and execution and rich with symbolism, the totem poles, painted housefronts, masks, dance regalia, feast bowls, and elaborately decorated boxes made by the native people of the North Pacific Coast have long been recognized as masterworks of art. Here, in a series of community self-portraits, cultural figures from eleven Northwest Coast nations discuss the ways in which these masterpieces, as well as everyday tools and utensils from the museum's collections, connect them with their forbears, who made and used these beautiful objects. Kwakwaka'wakw Chief Robert Joseph and the community curators contrast the approach anthropologists and art historians have taken to the treasures of the Northwest with Native people's perspective on their cultural legacy. In addition, Mary Jane Lenz explores the Northwest as a crossroads of native and non-native worlds in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when many of these works were collected, and today.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references p. (186-188)
Table of contents: title: The art of native life; title: An elder's perspective; title: Coast Salish: the beauty of everyday things; title: Makah: all that our past has generously bestowed; title: Nuu-chan-nulth: a nation always praying; title: Kwakwaka'wakw: our customs, our ways; title: Heiltsuk: uplifting our people; title: Nuxalk: these treasures have kept our culture alive; title: Tsimshian: the strength of the people; title: Nisga'a: I will send you a messenger; title: Gitxsan: words of wisdom; title: Haida: we carry on our ancestors' voices; title: Tlingit: things we will remember; title: Learning to see from within