124 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 19 NUMBER 2

CMA News

[Editor's Note: As a service to our readers, MuseumAnthropology will begin with this issue reprinting themonthly "Council for Museum Anthropology NewsColumn"from the Anthropology Newsletter publishedby the American Anthropological Association.]

MOLLY LEE, Contributing EditorUniversity of Alaska Museum

P O. Box 6960, Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960(email: ffmcl@aurora.alaska.edu)

September 1995

AAM Annual Meeting Draws CMA MembersThe 90th annual meetings of the American Asso-

ciation of Museums held May 21-25 in Philadelphiaincluded discussions of topical importance and a con-stellation of events of interest to CMA members. In acity with a score of museums to visit during off hours,several thousand delegates attended panels andviewed Museum Expo95, the meeting trade show, atthe Philadelphia Convention Center.

AAM Board MeetingIn the past, affiliate organizations like CMA have

been represented on the AAM board. Beginning in1996, however, they will be represented on a newlyconstituted Board of Affiliates. At this year's generalboard meeting, several matters of importance to CMAwere discussed.

Controversial ExhibitsThe Smithsonian's recent Enola Gay debacle

brought to light the need for clearer guidelines formuseum exhibits focusing on historical events. AAMPresident Ed Able pointed out that cultural diversitymade this especially critical and urged AAM leader-ship to develop guidelines. Able also observed thatincreasing U.S. pluralism necessitates the building ofmultiple perspectives into exhibition design andnoted that museum anthropologists will play an in-creasingly critical role in exhibition development ifcontroversies such as Enola Gay are to be avoided inthe future.

Ongoing Efforts for NEH/NEAAnother board meeting topic was AAM's continu-

ing efforts in support of NEA and NEH. Noting theever-shifting nature of congressional allegiance, Ablesaid that AAM had focused on the broad aim ofpreventing Congress from the empowerment to elimi-nate direct funding of cultural activities. He wascautiously optimistic about the results of their lobby-ing and of the ground swell of grass roots support ofthe AAM membership. AAM has striven for increasedpublic visibility for the NEA/NEH mandate, such asads placed in the NY Times and People. Though stillfar from securing the agencies' futures, these effortshave played a part in modifying Congress's stand.Originally, NEA-NEH opponents sought to eliminatethe agencies altogether. Now, lacking the necessaryvotes to demolish them, Congress is advocating athree-year phase-out. Able stressed, however, thatdespite wide public support, continuance ofNEA/NEH depends on combating an equally deter-mined opposition with continuing commitments oftime and money. At the time of this writing (6-21-95),while reallocation of funds to NEH/NEA has beenendorsed by the Appropriations Committee, a newamendment has been proposed that also threatensthem: it would give States control over 80% of thesefunds. It is vitally important for those concerned withpresenting anthropology to the public to become in-volved in these issues.

CMA Board and Business MeetingsContinuing on the NEA/NEH theme, one of the first

actions of the semi-annual CMA Board Meeting, heldon Sunday, May 21, was endorsement of AAM's lob-bying efforts.

At both the board meeting and the business meet-ing held May 23, President Schildkrout brought upthe need to promote CMA membership, especiallyamong the AAM constituency. Various strategies werediscussed including distribution of the new member-ship brochure and printing extra promotional copiesof Museum Anthropology. Another focus was the needto provide additional benefits to AAM/CMA members,who do not receive CMA news through AN. Severalapproaches were considered including republishingAN columns in Museum Anthropology, (which mostAAM members see). This suggestion was approved atthe business meeting and is being implemented.

Sally Yerkovitch, Chair of the Long Range PlanningCommittee, distributed copies of the proposed planto board members and the Long Range Planning

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Committee for discussion at the next board meetingand summarized the activities of her committee at thebusiness meeting. Among recommendations were achange in the CMA mission statement and the dis-banding of inactive committees. Yerkovitch also gavean update on the membership questionnaire distrib-uted in 1994. Intended to determine member needs,these are now being coded; results will be announcedat the November board meeting.

At the business meeting, collecting and disseminat-ing information about anthropology museum studiesprograms was discussed. The membership has ex-pressed interest in having this available. Ann Hedlund(Arizona State) and Barbara Hale (Haffenreffer Mu-seum) agreed to undertake collecting and compiling.Results will be disseminated in a future AN column.

PanelsCMA sponsored one well-attended panel and co-

sponsored a second at AAM. Making Inclusive Insti-tutions: Anthropologists and Museum Practice,chaired by Dolores Root (Mass Humanities Found),Eric Gable (Yale), Peter Welsh (Arizona State), StevenOlson (Church History Museum), and Deborah Mack(Field Museum) considered various contributions an-thropologists make to the more culturally diversedirections taken by today's museums. A second, co-sponsored panel, Exhibitions, Research and Real LifeVoices: A Delicate Balance, chaired by Nannette Clark(Afro-Am Hist Museum). Panelists Craig Wilder andJill Vexler (Crown Heights Hist Proj), Celest Brosenne(Minn Hist Cent) and Amina Dickerson (Chicago HistSoc) considered the often-problematical process oftranslating personal histories into exhibitions.

Evening Reception at the Mutter MuseumCertainly the most memorable CMA event at AAM

was the wine and cheese reception held the eveningof May 23 at the Mutter Museum of the College ofPhysicians of Philadelphia. Mutter, a Philadelphia sur-geon, donated his collection of pathological odditiesto the College in 1856. Left largely undisturbed, thecollection is one of the few surviving nineteenth-cen-tury cabinets of scientific specimens. In a split-levelarrangement of antique exhibit cases CMA membersand guests wandered through a ghoul's paradise ofanatomical peculiarities, preserved in wax, picklingfluid, and other ambients. A flock of feminists sippedand clucked over the skeleton of a woman with a ribcage deformed by the tight lacing of her corsets;among other of the more palatable attractions were

the bladder stones removed in 1831 from Chief Jus-tice John Marshall and the double-seated chair ofChang and Eng, world-renown Siamese twins. If lesscheese was consumed than is usual at such events,attendees undoubtedly compensated by making alarger-than-normal dent in the wine supply. •

October 1995

New Board Members ElectedIn the Spring elections CMA members voted in

three new representatives to the Executive Boardmembers: George H. J. Abrams, Paula Girshick Ben-Amos, and Karl Hutterer.

Abrams, a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians,received his BA and MA in anthropology from SUNYBuffalo. Currently a Visiting Professor in the MuseumStudies Program at NYU, Abrams brings to our boardboth a Native American perspective and long experi-ence in the tribal museum movement. Over the pastdecades he has been involved in organizing severaltribal museums around the U.S. and has been activein their educational and cultural programming.Abrams has also served as director of one museumand on the board of trustees of two others. During hisupcoming CMA board term he will focus on attractingadditional minority members to CMA through anaggressive membership drive.

Ben-Amos, an Africanist, holds a Ph.D. from Indi-ana University, where she is an Associate Professor.Among her numerous publications is "Pidgin Lan-guages and Tourist Art" {Studies in the Anthropologyof Visual Communication, 1977), a landmark in thefield of ethnic arts. According to Ben-Amos, "One ofthe most pressing of [CMA's] concerns is the trainingand preparation of students for professional life in themuseum . . . world." She advocates "looking for waysto increase museum internships and courses on mu-seum issues . . . and to broaden scholarly involvementin this endeavor." Ben-Amos's broad experience inteaching the anthropology of art, as editor of a mate-rial culture series, and as a museum curator qualifiesher for an active role in CMA's ongoing efforts tostrengthen anthropology museum-based courses (thesubject of an upcoming AN column).

Hutterer, who received his Ph.D. at Hawaii, isProfessor of Anthropology and Director of the ThomasBurke Memorial Museum (Washington). Author of

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numerous scholarly publications, his specialty isSoutheast Asia. As a CMA board member, Huttererplans to support and promote initiatives directed atinformation exchange and discussion about the issueof representation. He poses some of the most centralquestions preoccupying the anthropology museumtoday: "Do we have the moral right to the collectionswe own and curate? . . . Is the academic profession .. . more interested in the critique of museums than inthe information contained in their collections?"

CMA welcomes these additions to the board andlooks forward to the energy their varied perspectiveswill bring.

Museum News and Upcoming ExhibitionsLooking at Culture is the renamed Visual Anthro-

pology Gallery at the Phoebe Hearst Museum (UCBerkeley). The gallery will be permanently devotedto photographic exhibitions with cultural anthropol-ogy themes. It is only the most recent manifestationof the Hearst's long standing interest in visual anthro-pology, which began with founder Phoebe A. Hearst'sdonation of a collection of images from leading pho-tographers of her day. The Hearst's upcoming exhibi-tion, The Carver's Art of the Indians of NorthwesternCalifornia, opening on August 23, received a publichumanities project grant of $19,380 from the Califor-nia Council for the Humanities to support the exhibitand related public programs about the carving tradi-tions of California's Native peoples of the KlamathRiver region.

Splendid Heritage: Masterpieces of Native AmericanArt from the Masco Collection will be on view at theWheelwright Museum (Santa Fe, NM) until Septem-ber 27.

Archaeologist Christopher B. Donnan, Director ofthe Fowler Museum (UCLA) has recently beenawarded the Great Cross of the Order of Merit forDistinguished Service, Peru's highest honor accordedto foreigners, for his "efforts in promoting Peru'spre-Columbian heritage around the world."

Animals in African Art: From the Familiar to theMarvelous will be open at the Museum for African Artuntil February 1996. According to Ethnology CuratorNancy Blomberg at The Denver Art Museum, the ElkTongue Beaver Bundle, a sacred objects used in theBeaver Ceremony, has been repatriated to the Black-feet tribe. The bundle is the first article from DAM'scollection to be returned in accordance with the Na-tive American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act(NAGPRA) of 1990.

Forced to Leave: the Detention of Alaskan Japanese-Americans and Aleuts during World War II, co-curatedby Ron Inouye and Pat Patrivelli, will be on view atthe University of Alaska Museum, (Fairbanks) untilJune 1996.

After a nationwide tour of five Canadian museums,Rare Flower: A Century of Cantonese Opera in Canadareturns to the Museum of Anthropology (British Co-lumbia) until October 10.

Quando Hablan Los Santos: Contemporary SanteroTraditions from Northern New Mexico, curated by ManLyn Salvador, will be at the Maxwell Museum ofAnthropology (New Mexico) through January 1996.A constellation of associated public events will con-tinue for exhibition's the duration.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center will host Seasonsof the Buffalo through November. The exhibition is theCenter's first to combine scientific and cultural per-spectives in telling the story of the West's most famousherbivore.

Jonathan King and Henrietti Lidchi, of the Museumof Mankind (British Museum) are co-organizing aconference, Imaging the Arctic: The Native Photographin Alaska, Canada, and Greenland to be held April18-20 1996 in London. Proposals of 200 words or lessshould be sent to Lidchi at: The Museum of Mankind,6 Burlington Gardens, London W1X 2EX (fax: 011-44-71-323-8013). •

November 1995

Information about Museum StudiesPrograms Sought

CMA members Ann Lane Hedlund (Arizona StateUniversity) and Barbara Hail (Haffenreffer Museum,Brown University) have undertaken to survey andcompile a directory and file of information aboutmuseum studies programs with an anthropologicalfocus. Included are undergraduate, graduate andnon-degree levels as well as individual courses.Hedlund and Hail are soliciting relevant informationsuch as course prospecti and syllabi, reading lists,brochures, guidelines, application forms, and courselists. They hope to publish a directory of such pro-grams and courses in Museum Anthropology, plus areview article describing the aggregate picture ofmuseum anthropology training across the U.S.

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Because museum anthropology is currently in anexciting transition period, Hedlund and Hail are par-ticularly interested in receiving the contents of spe-cific courses and reading lists that include bothmuseum and anthropological literature. Contributorswill be credited for authorship of such material. De-pending on responses, the organizers will considersharing timely documents electronically.

Hedlund and Hail are also arranging for materialsaccumulated through this survey to be deposited witha national reference center/library to maximize ac-cessibility. Once a repository is established, they planto ask for period updates given that much of thematerial will be dated. Please send responses toHedlund (Anthropology Deptartment, ArizonaState University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2402; e-mail:ann.hedlund@asu.edu). They should include: con-tact person and position, institution, address, tele-phone, fax, e-mail. Other information: Title ofprogram, nature of program (year founded, degreeoffered (or non-degree certificate), coursework re-quired (or individual course). Please also list thedisciplines or sub-disciplines represented, courses of-fered and participating faculty. Respondees shouldalso indicate whether they want their program to beincluded in a directory of museum training programsin anthropology.

Canadian Repatriation UpdateDuring 1995, CMA Board Member and Canadian

Museums Association Council Member Trudy Nicks(Royal Ontario Museum) has been in charge of updat-ing the status of the Task Force on Museums and FirstPeoples.

Background: The Lubicon Lake First Nation's boy-cott of the Glenbow Museum's exhibition The SpiritSings in 1988 was the impetus for bringing togetheraboriginal peoples and museums in a series of na-tional discussions co-sponsored by the Canadian Mu-seums Assoc and the Canadian Assembly of FirstNations. In 1989 a task force from both groups wasformed to work out an ethical framework for Nativepeople to represent their history and culture in col-laboration with museums and other cultural institu-tions. In 1990-91 the Task Force conductedconsultations across Canada focusing on (amongother objectives) increasing Native people's self-rep-resentation in historical and cultural projects, accessto museum collections, and participation in museumprograms related to their cultural heritage. Resultswere published in Turning the Page: New Partnerships

Between Museums and First Peoples (1992).Earlier this year, in an effort to reinforce their

commitment to First Nation's museum participation,the Task Force worked to compile a record of theexperiences of museums and individuals who haveimplemented the 1992 recommendations throughcollaborative projects. Results will be presented at theannual meetings of the Canadian Museums Associa-tion this autumn.

Copies of the 1992 Task Force Report are availablefrom the Canadian Museums Assoc, 280 Metcalfe,Suite 400, Ottawa, Ont, Canada, K2P 1R7 (fax: 613-233-5438). Cost is $5.00 (Canadian).

Museum News and Upcoming ExhibitionsThe long-awaited Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, the

first major exhibition to explore the ritual arts of thisvibrant Afro-Caribbean religion, opened at the FowlerMuseum (UCLA) on October 22. The exhibition isaccompanied by a 450-page catalogue by Donald J.Cosentino (UCLA), who co-curated the exhibitionwith Marilyn Houlberg (Chicago Art Institute). Afterclosing at the Fowler in June 1996 the show will travelto four other U.S. venues including New York, Chicagoand Miami.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe has recentlyopened Works from the Estate of Edwin Bewley(through May 1996) includes fine and folk and NativeAmerican arts. On November 3, the Museum will openBetty Hahn: Photography of Maybe Not, a thirty-yearretrospective of innovative photography in which theartist explores style, material and methodology. Theexhibition remains on view until February 1996. •

December 1995

This month's guest columnist is CMA President,Enid Schildkrout. Curator of the African Collectionsat the American Museum of Natural History,Schildkrout has worked extensively in Nigeria andGhana. In Summer 1995 she attended the 25th anni-versary of the enthronement of the Asantehene ofGhana.

The Opening of a Palace Museum in Ghanaby Enid Schildkrout

For those of us interested in interpreting the textsembedded in museum displays, in the politics of re-patriation and the relations between museums and

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communities it's fascinating to watch new museumsspring up in places where most people haven't hadany reason to think about what a museum might be,or if they have thought about it, may have verydifferent ideas from us "museum professionals."

When the Jubilee Celebrations for the 25th anni-versary of the enstoolment of the Asantehene, (Kingof Asante) were being planned last year, in Kumasi,Ghana, opening a palace museum was added to thelist of festivities that included a Mass at the AnglicanCathedral Church, performances, a grand durbar,banquets and much more. I happened to be in Kumasirevisiting the community I worked in many years agowhen plans were being made. Having been in chargeof the US showing of the Museum of Mankind's exhi-bition, "Asante Kingdom of Gold" and having beenresponsible for arranging the visit of the Asanteheneto New York in 1984,1 was drafted to participate, ina tangential way, in the planning of the new palacemuseum. Malcolm McLeod, Curator of the earlierexhibition, was also brought in by the Asante (withsupport from the British Council) to draw up and helpimplement the plans.

When the Jubilee Committee decided to open amuseum, they envisioned using the palace of twoformer Asantehenes, Prempeh I and Prempeh II. Theplan was to keep the downstairs of the two-story"bungalow" pretty much as it had been left when thepresent Asantehene built himself a new palace. Theold palace contained lovely Victorian and Art Decofurniture, photographs of Asante royals with interna-tional dignitaries, and all the accoutrements of a fineChristian home that served as both office and resi-dence for the two Prempehs. Upstairs, the originalbedrooms underwent major structural repair, and ex-hibit cases were built to display some objects from thepalace treasury.

Nothing quite worked out as I expected, but every-thing did work out in a uniquely Asante way. TheAsante raised all the money they needed to repair thebuilding; they built a shop in the courtyard, made anintroductory video, and inventoried, cleaned and re-arranged all the furniture and objects on the first floor.Five life-like fiberglass mannequins were built in Lon-don of past and present Asante royals. A retired schoolteacher was hired as curator.

The VIP opening was scheduled for August 12, theday before the durbar. 2,000 people were invited,while 100,000 were expected at the durbar. To be heldin the Kumasi Sports Stadium, a durbar is a largepublic procession and display of royal presence in

which the Asantehene is greeted by all of the chiefsand communities who honor him. In attendance wereto be local and foreign dignitaries such as GeneralRawlings, Ghana's head of State, the King of the Zulufrom South Africa and the Moro Naba, the King of theMossis from Burkina Faso. The Asantehene and QueenMother would be carried on palanquins, wearing andsurrounded by their most important regalia, includingthe Golden Stool of Asante.

Meantime, what was to go into the exhibit caseson the second floor of the new museum? In Asanteevery piece of royal regalia is entrusted to a particularpalace official. Until two days before the opening, noone had any idea what would be displayed there. Thecurator was not a palace treasurer, nor were thepalace treasurers curators. So, here was a museumopening, cases in place, and no objects, labels, ormounts—all very perplexing to the visiting Americancurator. But somehow there was a sense that theAsante would pull it off, and that probably somebodyknew what was happening right along. Indeed, at6:00 a.m. on the day of the opening, objects from theroyal treasury appeared and were placed in cases (nomounts, no labels). At 10:00 a.m., a few of the WIPs(Very VIPs) were escorted through. At 2:00 p.m.,ceremonies began on the lawn. After the speeches,which included more than a few words about restitu-tion of objects from Britain, the Asantehene cut theribbon and entered the museum, followed by as manypeople as could squeeze in with him. At the end ofthe day, the cases were emptied, and the objects wentback into safe keeping somewhere. The appearedagain at the durbar the next day: gold rings, neck-laces, crowns, and sandals adorning the Asantehene,the Golden Stool and the Golden Drum, and a numberof important gold leaf swords, carried by his atten-dants. After that, work began on making replicas forthe museum. Security concerns were the ostensiblereason, but it was clear that the Asante had somehowrealized that there were many issues yet to be re-solved about the role of a museum in a living culture.

Call for NominationsDuane Anderson, Chair of the CMA Nominating

Committee, is seeking recommendations for nomina-tions for CMA officers and Advisory Board whoseterms expire in January, 1997. All officers and threeAdvisory Board slots will be on the slate. Communi-cations should be sent to Anderson at the School ofAmerican Research, RO. Box 2188, Santa Fe, NM87501. *