By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Evan Mathis puts on plastic gloves, opens an area, and begins examining several old Cherokee baskets. He is working diligently to not only protect the items contained in the Museum of the Cherokee Peoples’ Collections area; but, he is working to help others learn about these fascinating and culturally-important items.
Mathis, Museum director of collections and exhibitions, commented, “We know that our objects are living and an extension of the maker. So, we want our collections to be happy when they’re being housed in a cold, dark room. They’re in a cold, dark room because it’s best for their longevity. But, we also try to bring people back here as much as we can so that they can interact with living, Cherokee people.”
Shana Bushyhead Condill, left, Museum of the Cherokee People executive director, and Evan Mathis, Museum director of collections and exhibitions, examine an impressive basket in the Museum’s Collections on the morning of Wednesday, March 19. (SCOTT MCKIE B.P./One Feather photos)
He said that the Cherokee community has such a great base of knowledge regarding tribal artifacts. “That’s why it’s so important to bring the community back here. They know best how to care for these objects, who the makers are, and all the stories that are connected to them. So, we try to bring people back here as much as we can.”
Mathis said that he is organizing the objects by family groups rather than alphabetically.
“There’s still a lot of research to be done and we learn more every day.”
Shana Bushyhead Condill, Museum executive director, commented, “The first strategic plan was about getting on track – enhancing our employee handbook to actually have policies that we need, fiscal management policies…we didn’t have a collections policy. That’s why we have objects from all over the world in our collections is because we didn’t have a scope of what we were collecting. So, to codify that we collect Cherokee objects was a major step in just our structure, in formalizing our museum structure.”
She said identifying the pieces in the Collections has been a major goal. “One of the things that Evan does that almost brings tears to my eyes every time I see it is ‘maker once known’. It’s what he’ll put if we don’t actually know who made the object. So, it ties it to us as being Cherokee people. We are not just our objects.”
Condill added, “We have objects from all over. We live in a removal state and so when folks have objects that are Native, they would just come here. We were taking them and we’re happy to care for them, because in the same way that I hope folks are caring for our objects that are all over the world. But also, we know they want to go home. We had the opportunity to return a Kiowa cradleboard home. This thing was beautiful. It took up a lot of shelf space and, of course, shelf space is a resource. We were happy to care for it…gorgeous and then we were like, ‘let’s see how we can get it home’. And, of course Evan started doing all this research and getting in his network and figuring out who would be the correct people.”
Dakota Brown, Museum director of education, said, “We believe that if we return these objects that don’t belong to us or belong in our community, that it makes room, it makes space in a lot of different ways to accept things back that are all over the place. There are things all over Europe that are Cherokee and all over the world that are Cherokee just sitting on collections shelves. Most of it was collected unethically so we would love to be able to welcome those things back home that our community can learn from them, our artists can interact with them, and that we could learn more about our past and who our ancestors were by bringing these things home.”
Mathis, right, and Dakota Brown, Museum director of education, look at carved figurines by the late John Julius Wilnoty on Wednesday morning.
Mathis said identifying the artist is a job he works on every day. “We’re also, for the first time in the old exhibit, acknowledging who the makers of the objects are and making sure that they’re acknowledged in the exhibit. Before when you walked through, there was no names of the makers listed…unfortunately, that information, a lot of it has been lost. They have really poor records. We don’t know where some of the materials came from. But, if we have the information, we’re going to list it.”
He went on to say, “All of our exhibits going forward will be culturally safe for our community to go through. There won’t be any funerary or sacred objects on view and people will have the opportunity to consent to viewing those things if they come here to view those things in the object collections.”
Brown noted that listing the names of the artists is extremely important. “I think it humanizes it a little bit for the visitors because sometimes they look at these objects and they just see the object. They don’t realize that somebody actually made this. That sometimes gets lost on our visitors. So, even if we have to put ‘maker once known’, that’s a part of our label standards now, but if we have to put ‘maker once known’ then it at least humanizes it and shows that somebody made this. Somebody somewhere made this.”
Mathis said that 60 to 70 percent of the non-archaeological objects are now identified.
He encourages members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to visit the Museum Collections. “We put in our policy that all of these materials belong to every living and future Cherokee person, so it belongs to everybody. We are just the stewards of this material so come in and utilize it. That’s what we always tell people – this belongs to you, come use it.”
To schedule a visit, email Mathis at evan.mathis@motcp.org.
He noted, “It’s pretty easy. We do need about two weeks to get you on the calendar because our calendars stay insanely packed here. So, we do need about a two weeks heads up just to make sure that we’re available to get you on the calendar.”
You can also visit the Collections online at https://motcp.org/collections/.
