Museum Day | #BEDM Day 18

 

I have gone to my fair share of museums in the past and I loved each and every one of them for their own reasons. I mainly like going to museums for the history. I love learning about history, but I don't like history class. Hahah ;P All seriousness thought, I really love learning about history when it is visual more so than reading.

 

The most recent museum visit I have been to was in New York City with my husband, brother-n-law, and BNL's girlfriend. It was called The National Museum of the American Indian. We stumbled upon this museum on accident and didn't now it was there. I am glad we did though, because it has so much to offer with all the collections available there.

 

In this post I am going to share with you all a few of the photos I took while at the museum. Keep in mind only a portion of the museum was open for photos, while a large portion of it you were not allowed to take any photos in. The reason for that is a lot of the collections the museum had were private collections, so you were not allowed to photograph them because they did not belong to the museum themselves. They were just on display there for the public to see.

 

The ceiling of the building the museum is in, is truly beautiful. It had paintings along the top and the top portion is glass. I could stare at it all day!



These spoons were carved out of elk horns. The detail on these spoons alone are impeccable! It is mind blowing to me that they were able to carve these out of hard elk horn and have such detail.

 

 

These were dolls that the children played with and they were made from real animal fur, such as squirrels, cows, beavers, and rabbits. The children accessorized their dolls to mimick what their tribe was wearing. So these dolls represented here are said to be replicas of a family in their tribe. 

This is a large fish mask worn on the back of a ceremonial dancer. It is suppose to represent a halibut like sea monster. It was amazing to me the detail in this piece also. It had me thinking about the time that was put into constructing this. It isn't a small piece at all, so I could imagine it would take a while. With all the tools we have this day and age, this wouldn't seem to take that long. If you think about the tools they had at hand back then, we have it made with all our technology. 

This piece is suppose to be some type of whistle, if I remember correctly. I think it was made from some type of stone or animal horn. I didn't take a picture of the description under this piece (wish I did now), but from memory most of the things that they made back then were made from animals or nature (obviously, Avie *slaps head with palm*). Again with all the detail, it truly blew my mind all the detail these pieces had!

These pieces were used to carry their children on their backs. It is very similar to the back carriers we have now a days. Again, these were made from animal skin and colored naturally. The detail in this piece is amazing also. It must have taken a lot of work to put this all together and actually be functional everyday.

 

I found myself truly amazed at detail throughout this museum tour. I remember being awe when I was walking through and admiring the handmanship. It truly blows my mind every time I think about it.

 

I hope you all enjoyed this post and shared the awe I had for all these pieces. It really is amazing every time I think about it.

 

Share your museum trips or museums you would want to visit with me in the comments below. I would love to hear all about them!

 

Until Next Time,

Avie T.