National Museum of the American Indian

National Museum of the American Indian
The George Gustav Heye Center
Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House
One Bowling Green
New York, NY 10004
212-514-3700

On a railroad construction assignment in Arizona in 1897, a young electrical engineer acquired an Apache deerskin shirt. This acquisition marked the beginning of a hobby that developed into a full-time pursuit that resulted in the creation of the largest private collection of Native American objects in the world.

George Gustav Heye (1874-1957) continued to acquire single items until 1903, when he began collecting material in huge quantities. In 1901 he began a career in investment banking that would last until 1909, when traveling throughout North and South America collecting Native objects became a full-time occupation. I don’t how he acquired the savings that enabled him to do this, but it’s worth noting that his father was an immigrant who accumulated wealth in the petroleum industry. This might help explain the free time, and it might also explain George’s buying habits. While most collectors focused on the most significant objects, Heye often bought every object he could find, shipping the items back to his Madison Avenue apartment in New York City.

Eventually, the collection was moved to the Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian in Upper Manhattan. The museum opened to the public in 1922 and remained open until 1994, when the Smithsonian Institution opened the George Gustav Heye Center in Lower Manhattan. In September 2004 an additional branch of the National Museum of the American Indian was opened at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

At the time of this writing an exhibition called A Song for the Horse Nation is open to the public at the New York City branch. It was created by selecting from their collection artifacts relating to the horse, in one way or another. Each item demonstrates in a unique way the importance of the horse to indigenous inhabitants of the Great Plains during the late 19th century. Sometimes the animal was a hunting companion and other times it was a means of waging war. In some cases it was a noteworthy participant in a memorialized event, in other cases the horse itself was commemorated as a possession of remarkable value.

The New York branch of the National Museum of the American Indian occupies two floors of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Lower Manhattan. This building was built 1902 – 1907 by the federal government to house Port of New York duty collection operations. Embellished with lavish sculptures, paintings, and decorations by well-known artists of the time, it is considered to be a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style, which was a major influence on U.S. architects of that era.

Left: Hunkpapa Lakota dance stick, ca. 1899. A warrior would have carried this stick to honor a horse in ceremonial dances. Decorated with brass hawk bells (usually tied to a hawk’s foot so the owner could locate it as it flew after hunted game), golden eagle feathers and imitation scalps, it depicts a cherished horse that suffered two bullet wounds to the neck.

Right: Dance stick, created by No Two Horns (Hunkpapa Lakota), ca. 1890. No Two Horns fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1867. His famous (and widely copied) dance stick portrays a horse that died in that battle. The red triangles indicate wounds, and the scalp replica (according to the signs at the museum all the scalps displayed are imitations and replicas) dangling from the bridle testifies to to exploits in warfare. Although suffering from six separate wounds, the horse carried No Two Horns to victory.

This is a Piikuni (Piegan Blackfeet) Horse Mask from Montana, ca. 1830-60. Clearly meant to instill fear in the enemy, and confidence in the rider, all the more so when the intended references to the spiritual are understood. This piece is decorated with pony beads (glass beads named after their method of delivery, e.g. via the Pony Express), clipped feathers and Chinese brass buttons.

This is a shirt from the Cheyenne tribe in Montana, ca. 1865. Esteemed Plains warriors and spiritual leaders wore shirts such as this one. Pipe images on the left indicate the number of war parties led by the wearer of the garment. Human figures on the right represent defeated enemies. They are depicted without legs, as they will never move again.

This Possible bag is probably from the Minneconjou Lakota (Minniconjou Sioux from North Dakota) circa 1880. Chief White Swan is depicted relating his war exploits to a woman. “Possible bag” was a name given by early nineteenth-century traders as a direct translation from the Indian word meaning “a bag for every possible thing”. These containers held personal items inside tipis, where they doubled as pillows. When moving camp, possible bags were hung in pairs on either side of a saddle where their decorations could be admired.