New Hampshire House Budget Cuts Will Seriously Affect Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum

This post was excerpted from an article on Boston.com.  Read the entire story at
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2011/04/16/nh_arts_funding_would_be_lost_in_house_budget/

For the last several years grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts have helped provide for classes at Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, such as drum-making, pottery and beadwork. It has also kept admission prices stable for three years.  But the monthly classes may no longer be offered and the price of admission -- currently $8.50 for an adult -- would likely go up if the budget passed by the New Hampshire House takes effect.

The House has abolished New Hampshire's Department of Cultural Resources in its budget.  This action strips funding for the Arts Council, essentially cutting that program.

This is serious news for Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum.  The museum has received grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts for its operations and exhibits for several years; it received $7,100 during the last fiscal year. Losing that source of money will force the museum to make changes in the kinds of classes and activities it has offered in the past.  The fact that the council's fund is matched by dollars from the National Endowment for the Arts means the effect of cuts to the State Council for the Arts will be felt more keenly.

New Hampshire would not qualify for any federal arts money if state arts funding is cut; that money would go to other states. The absence of funds would leave New Hampshire -- one of the first states to support public funding of the arts -- the only state without an arts council, Cultural Resources Director Van McLeod said.

"Without program grant support from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, Mount Kearsarge Indian Museum will not be able to program the Native American arts demonstrations and performances and classes that we currently offer," said Shawn Olson, executive director of the museum in Warner. "The private sector is not doing a lot."

Olson said she recently sent in an application for a grant that would help make the museum's doors accessible to the handicapped. She said it's hard to find a grant program to fund such small-scale projects.

Looking through her guestbook, Olson noted entries from last summer from visitors as far away as Australia and the Netherlands. They see the museum's sign on Interstate 89 and stop by.

"Personally, I cannot believe that the state legislators don't see that just cutting the arts and tourism budgets, much less eliminating them, is going to severely hurt the entire state of New Hampshire and residents from loss of jobs, drop in tourism with further loss of jobs, and the decrease in our quality of life," she said.

The History of Indigenous Containers Among Wabanaki People

In conjuction with Baskets Out Of The Attic, Gaby Pelletier will present a program about the history of baskets and other containers among Wabanaki people.  The program will take place Saturday, March 26 at 7:00 at Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, 18 Highlawn Rd., Warner, NH.


Gaby Pelletier is a scholar of northeastern Native American baskets and traditions.  For directions or more information, visit http://www.indianmuseum.org/ or call 603-456-2600.

Gaby Pelletier

Baskets Out Of The Attic: a Discovery and Documentation Event

Please come to Warner Saturday, March 26 for Baskets Out of the Attic, which will be held in the Warner Town Hall at 5 East Main St. from 9:00 - 3:00.

Do you have old baskets tucked away in your attic or closets?  Whether you know their history or are curious to find out more about them, please come to this day-long event.  Experts will be on hand to tell you more about your baskets.  They will also complete a documentation form for you, including a photo.

If you plan to attend, you are encouraged to bring your entire basket collection to the event.  Our experts will select three of your most interesting baskets to evaluate at a cost of $5.00 per basket.  Monetary appraisals will not be given.

Providing their expertise for Baskets Out of the Attic will be Gaby Pelletier, scholar on northeastern Native American baskets and traditions and Chris Bullock of The Wandering Bull, LLC.  Chris is an authority on contemporary American Indian crafts.

Baskets Out of the Attic is sponsored by Hopkinton Historical Society, Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum, Warner Historical Society, and Wijokadoak, Inc. in preparation for the 2011 Summer Exhibit, Along the Basket Trail, which will be held jointly at the three museums.  The exhibits open May 1 and will include a series of speakers and demonstrations throughout the summer at each location.

For more information about Baskets Out of the Attic or Along The Basket Trail, please go to TheBasketTrail.com .

Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum Special Exhibit: The Art and Function of the Crooked Knife

Preparations are well under way for the museum's 2011 exhibit, Along the Basket Trail.  Until the exhibit opens in May, we'll take a look at the highly successful 2010 exhibit, The Art and Function of the Crooked Knife, and feature a few of the knives in our collection.

The crooked knife is named for its angled blade and is used by drawing it toward the body. First used in New England by the Indigenous Native Peoples, the original stone or bone blade was replaced with metal when it became available. Early colonists adopted the knives, finding them more practical for many purposes then their own straight edge knives.  Objects made with the knives include canoe parts, basket handles, bowls, bows and the beautifully carved wooden handles of the knives themselves.

Diamonds and Triangles

This knife was made around 1878.  It is made of wood, steel, fiber and lead. The handle ends in a cylinder and has been chip-carved with diamonds and triangles.  There is also a date, which could represent the date it was carved, or the date of a significant event for the carver.  The knife shows many signs of use, such as fine lines and cracks and a fine patina from years of use.  The profile of the blade is evidence of repeated grinding and sharpening.

Gift of Bud and Nancy Thompson

Bone, Spruce Root and Iron

Made by the Athabaskan Indians of Alaska in the 1930s, this knife is made of bone, spruce root and iron.  The blade is formed from two curved pieces of iron, riveted together.  The knife has a curved bone handle.  The blade is held on by spruce root lashing.

Gift of Hope Johnson Miller Leone

Tree of Life

This crooked knife was made of wood, steel and leather some time between 1880 and 1940.  The entire face of this knife’s handle is chip carved with a central “tree of life” design that is found on other Native-made items from Northeastern North America, such as baskets and beadwork.

Gift of Bud and Nancy Thompson

Playing Card Suits

Carved playing card suits and blue paint were a common motif on crooked knives.  The blade on this knife may have originally been a file.  It has been re-sharpened many times.

Gift of Bud and Nancy Thompson

J. A. R.

The handle of this knife is carved from a wood burl.  The carver shaped the end of the handle into a heart and embellished its face with another heart, plants and semi-circles, and the back with the initials J.A.R.  This blade has many curved planes and is designed to be drawn easily in one direction only.  The knife was made of maple, steel and cotton circa 1880 – 1940.

Gift of Bud and Nancy Thompson

A Hand

This distinctive knife was made around 1950 by French-Canadian wood carver and fiddler Omer Marcoux for Bud Thompson.  The Maliseet Indian hand shows fine detail, including fingernails, palm lines and wrist detail.  The blade was originally a file.

Gift of Bud and Nancy Thompson           

A Horse

This crooked knife was also made around 1950 by French-Canadian wood carver and fiddler Omer Marcoux for Bud Thompson.  Marcoux was famous for his carvings of animals, and many fine details are in evidence here.  The blade appears to have been ready-made and has hardly been sharpened.

Anonymous Loan

Photos by Steven Daigle.

The American Indian Adoption Project

     As part of Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum's Second Sunday Speaker Series, author Trace DeMeyer spoke February 13 about the Indian Adoption Project, and its lasting effects.  Trace is the author of One Small Sacrifice, in which she relates her own experiences as a Native American child who was adopted by a non-native family.
     The Indian Adoption Project operated from 1958 through 1967 under the administration of the Child Welfare League and funded by a federal contract from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Children's Bureau.  During its brief existence the Project oversaw the adoption of 395 Native American Children from 16 western states by white families in Illinois, Indiana, New York, Massachusetts, Missouri, and other states in the East and Midwest.  Fourteen children were placed with Southern white families, and one child was adopted by a family in Puerto Rico.
     This project was the first national effort to arrange for the adoption of an entire child population across cultural and racial lines.  It was seen as an example of an enlightened adoption practice that would help the nation overcome the racial prejudices that had formerly discouraged the adoption of Native American children.
     When the Indian Adoption Project ended in 1967, the Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA) continued its work.  ARENA arranged for the placement of native children with white adoptive parents into the early 1970s.
     The practice of inter-racial adoptions began to be challenged by Native Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  From the Native American perspective, the Indian Adoption Project and ARENA were yet further examples of a long line of genocidal government policies to which Native Americans had been subjected for hundred of years, designed to tear apart or destroy native communities and cultures.

     Spurred by these concerns, Native American rights advocates worked hard for the passage of the Indian Child Welfare Act.  The Act was finally passed in 1978.  It made it the adoption of Native American children by non-native families extremely difficult.

     In June 2001, Child Welfare League Executive Director Shay Bilchik formally apologized for the Indian Adoption Project at a meeting of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. He put the Child Welfare League of America on record in support of the Indian Child Welfare Act.
     “No matter how well intentioned and how squarely in the mainstream this was at the time,” he said, “it was wrong; it was hurtful; and it reflected a kind of bias that surfaces feelings of shame.”

Changes and Renovations in the Northeast Woodlands Gallery

We have been taking advantage of the fact that it is winter and the Museum is closed to the public to do some repainting and to rearrange some exhibits.

Volunteers Linda Hartman and Chris Bullock, along with Trustee Lynn Clark, are working on organizing our extensive collection of baskets to make sure they can be exhibited in a manner that is as culturally and historically correct.  Our apologies if the name of anyone who has also been working on this project was omitted.

This picture shows some baskets waiting for their new cases to be assembled and painted.







Linda Hartman's sheetrock repair skills have been invaluable in this project.
The project will be completed and the exhibits will be ready for the public when the Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum reopens on May 1, 2011.

Winter at the Museum

The Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum is closed to the public January through April, except for special programs, and the staff works reduced hours.

Although our hours are reduced, we have had to arrange our schedules so someone is here every day, mainly to see if our water pipes have frozen.

It is probably stating the obvious to say that this has been a cold, snowy winter.  Nighttime temperatures here in Warner, NH have been in the single numbers or lower, and our daytime highs have rarely been above 32º.  In other words, we've had just the right conditions for frozen pipes.

The offices of the museum are in an addition that was built within the last six or seven years.  This addition is attached to the southwest end of the museum, and where the two structures meet there is a cold air leak that has been defying our attempts to plug it.  It also is the reason our pipes have frozen several times since Jan. 1.

As I write this, a space heater is running full blast, pumping heat into the wall where the frozen pipe is located.  A hole has been cut in the sheet rock to allow the heat to reach the pipe, which has been wrapped with insulation.  The cavity the pipe runs through has been sealed and insulated, yet Old Man Winter still finds a way to blast our water supply with his icy breath.

We have a contractor lined up to fill the wall between the main building and the office with blown-in insulation.  He's a good man and has every intention of doing the job as soon as he can.  He is also a busy man, plowing snow and working on construction projects, among other things.  As long as we continue to get our weekly foot of snow, the insulation job will have to wait.

When I got to work this morning I found that no water would run from the faucet in our kitchen sink.  That faucet in the sink is wide open now.  I wait, hoping that at any time I will hear the welcome sound of water gushing into the sink.

But wait - I just heard the snow sliding off the museum roof!   The icicles along the eaves seem to be a bit smaller today.  Maybe winter does not have the upper hand, after all.

Post script:  The water began running at 1:00 p.m., accompanied by loud cheers.