The COVID-19 pandemic has altered how museums and other venues can welcome visitors. That’s the case for the Iroquois Indian Museum in Schoharie County, New York, which is offering a special outdoor exhibition.
WAMC's Jim Levulis spoke with museum director Steph Shultes about the unique facility and its summer programming.
Shultes: It is designed to resemble the traditional Iroquois longhouse, which was made out of Elm bark, and we're generally about 90 feet long and probably 20 feet wide. And the museum itself is approximately 90 feet long and 40 feet wide with three floors. And we've been there since 1992. We sit on 45 acres of land we have a nature trail that people are welcome to come on. And we're just below Howe Caverns.
Levulis: And the museum will be displaying an outdoor exhibition in July and August. Can you explain what that exhibition will be?
Yes, because we're not able to open because of COVID-19 we're trying to do more things that people can actually just come on the ground and look at. And so outside of our museum building, we have a large amphitheater that's covered. And so we've created five banners, that are a condensed version of a stereotype exhibit on Native Americans that we actually had at the museum in 2018. So it sort of gives you the variety of types of stereotypes that Native Americans have experienced from historical television, film, products and stores, some stereotypes that native people actually tend to perpetuate themselves and their communities. And so it sort of covers the whole gamut of how we imagine a culture and how those images can affect that culture.
And why did the museum, I guess refocus on this topic this year?
It's always an important topic. And of course, there's a lot going on with the Black Lives Matter and racist issues and things like that. It's just an attempt to kind of get people to reflect on how images or phrases or words that we use can affect another culture or another group of people. And it just kind of fits in with looking at other people and saying, Okay, well, what? What are my actions doing to another people?
In your mind why do these caricatures these stereotypes exists as it pertains to Native Americans?
That's an excellent question. I mean, it's been going on for you years. And you know, it starts often with the romantic image of the noble savage and how great environmentalists and, you know, the sort of what people would think of as positive stereotypes of Native people. And then it progresses to some more negative stereotypes, which is, you know, everybody Gamble's and they're making lots of money from casinos and they're selling cigarettes and they're alcoholics. And I don't know, you know, I guess people are people and we have to we see To have to come up with not necessarily stereotypes, but descriptions for various people, for whatever reason, and it may be out of fear, it may be out of misunderstanding, maybe out of just not knowing those people, you know that they're in a different spot, often. So it's just trying to, you know, get the word out that really we're all people. And we just have different, some different beliefs, but we all, you know, answer the phone the same way and do things very similarly to each other.
There will also be a series of Facebook Live Events offered by the Iroquois Indian Museum, what topics will those discuss?
Well, actually the first topic which is on July 8, would be with our Mohawk educator Mike Tarbell, and he will talk about stereotypes. So the plan is to do the Facebook Live in our amphitheater, so with the backdrop of the stereotype exhibit, and he will talk about his experiences as a Native American and how the stereotyping you know, feels to the people themselves. And then it moves on we have a couple other, I'm not going to be able to get them all I’m sure, but we have some that are many demonstrations. We did have a series planned for the summer where we were going to bring Iroquois artists to the museum to do demonstrations of quit working and bead working and various other things. And instead of that, we're going to do Facebook Live mini demonstrations with those artists from their home.
