While in D.C. The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian. The museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution and details every part of the Native American experience. The National Museum of the American Indian was our favorite non-garden museum of our whole trip.
The museum has tons of artifacts {more than 800,000, if you are counting} and covers pretty much everything Native American.
The Museum is broken up into areas: Amazon, Andes, Contemporary Art, Arctic/Subarctic, California/Great Basin, Mesoamerican/Caribbean, Northwest Coast, Patagonia, Plains/Plateau, Woodlands, etc. so it is easier to digest all of the information.
The museum tries not only to exhibit the history, but preserve Native American traditions as closely as possible. The canoes on display were one of our favorites. Can you imagine paddling across the river in one of these?
One thing we thought was super cool is museum officials consult tribal communities when dealing with curation practices. They even smudge the human remains vault with tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar once a week. The artifacts are carefully treated with respect, and when possible, broken down by individual tribal customs.
The museum seriously shows how skillful and artistic the Native Americans were at respectfully living off of the land–with some artifacts dating back as far as 12,000 years.
The detail work on the moccasins we saw were amazing.
The museum also shows how the cultures have evolved for living Native Americans today–showcasing a ton of modern day items. {Most of the items focus on North American Indians–with over 60% coming from the United States.}
After touring the museum, we stopped off at the Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe {Mitsitam literally means “let’s eat”}. To say we were surprised with the selection would be a huge understatement. Forget about your typical museum cafe food of sandwiches and fruit cups. The Girl and I both had red lentil soup and fry bread. And let me tell you Bob, it was delicious!
All in all, the National Museum of the American Indian was awesome!
~Mavis
Michelle O. says
We are Canadian military who have been posted to DC for the past three years. One of our goals was to take our four kids (ages 3-12) to all of the Smithsonian museums. We succeeded! We are in our final week here and when I asked our kids their favourite two museums to go back for a final visit they all agreed on The Museum of Natural History and The American Indian Museum!! I love their children’s area AND the awesome “cafeteria” 🙂
Diana T. says
The Mitsitam Cafe is one of our favorite places to eat in DC! We live in Southeastern VA, but anytime we make it up to The City, we always go to the American Indian museum to eat. It’s food you can’t get anywhere else and it’s always delicious.
Taniya says
I want to go there! Very neat-o!
Kathy says
I have made fry bread for my kids when they were younger, for a school project that was devoted to the kids heritage (they took in Native American food AND Hungarian food), Yes, part of their ancestry is Native American. I smudge my house at least twice a month as well. Would love to go to this museum. And am working on the red lentil soup! When I lived in Arizona, the Navajo actually traced my feet and made a beautiful pair of moccasins for my feet only, the only way they will do it!
Thank you for sharing.
Leonda Levchuk says
Thanks so much for your blog post about our museum! We are so happy that you and your family enjoyed your visit here. We loved the photos and we are proud of our collection and our Mitsitam Cafe! We have reposted this to our museum’s Facebook page. Hope that you can come back soon!
Mavis Butterfield says
Oh we will be back. Loved the museum {especially the doll exhibit and your food {and staff!} was wonderful. Thank you! 🙂