After 30 years of development, the award-winning First Americans Museum (FAM) opened in 2021 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. FAM has an all Indigenous board and curatorial team. FAM is run by the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum Foundation and has welcomed more than half a million visitors since opening. FAM cost 175 million USD to build, with major funders including the state of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and the Chickasaw Nation. The annual operating budget is about 7 million USD. The 175,000-square-foot museum complex is situated on 40 acres alongside the Oklahoma River in Oklahoma City’s new Horizon District beside Chickasaw Nation’s OKANA Resort and Waterpark. Obinna Ojemeni, doctoral student in the School of Library and Information Studies, Teaching Assistant in the online Masters of Museum Studies and lecturer at Enugu State University of Science and Technology (Nigeria), and myself, Dr. Laura Phillips, lecturer in Museum Studies, at the University of Oklahoma, sat down with the new Executive Director, Dr. Kelli Mosteller, in September 2024 to talk about FAM’s accomplishments. Dr. Mosteller joined FAM from Harvard University, where she was Executive Director of the Native American program. Before that, she was the Cultural Director and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for her Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma became the 48th state in 1907. The state name comes from the Choctaw words Okla Humma / Homma (red people). What is now Oklahoma was originally set aside by the American federal government as a dedicated territory for Indigenous Nations. In addition to the Nations present since time immemorial, this land was the endpoint of the so-called “Trails of Tears” events in the 1830s, when multiple sovereign Nations from across North America were forcibly removed from their lands to make space for European settlers. More than 100,000 Indigenous people were forced to walk from their homelands to Oklahoma, with thousands dying on the way. This is part of the reason that Oklahoma has one of the largest population of Indigenous people in the USA, with 39 tribes (as they are referred to in the USA) present. This brings us to one of the first accomplishments that is evident while visiting FAM, the representation of so many different Nations in one place. When Dr. Mosteller was working in Shawnee, she was part of the early consultations for FAM, when questions like ‘How do you want your story told? How do you want to be represented?’ were being asked of all 39 tribes (the word tribe(s) is commonly used in the USA instead of Nations or communities). We discussed the consultation process and how it compared to the research done for the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC.

As shared by Dr. Mosteller:

“The NMAI model is helpful for people who thinking about multi-tribe consultation for one institution. Our motto here, for WINICO and for our galleries is ‘many tribes, one nation’…’One museum, many tribes’ – that is a challenging undertaking, both at the national level, trying to think of all 500+ tribes [in the USA] or here in Oklahoma, with 39, because what you don’t want to do is conflate this into pan-Indian representation. I’m able to honour and speak to the unique cultures of all these tribes. My tribe has its own museum only about Citizen Potawatomi. We could fill a whole museum and probably more with just Potawatomi culture and history. So how do you do that in a respectful way, where you are not only telling the individual stories of those tribes, but also, the story of Oklahoma, and what it meant when all of these tribes came here, how we interacted, how we interacted with this land. These are also our neighbours. That relationship is a little unique. Here in Oklahoma, we’re all right here. We’re all neighbours. We’re all family. And your cousins are probably going to either work here or host a program here. So there’s that added layer of ‘we are in community with one another’. So we need to make sure that we are following through in a good way”.

In addition to two floors of exhibitions, a mini-exhibit area presents local Indigenous diversity in One Place, Many Nations: Acknowledging the 39. The building also includes a flexible gathering space named the Hall of The People with a multi-story, floor-to-ceiling ‘wall’ of windows, a cinema, a café and restaurant, a gift shop, private reception areas and a Family Discovery Centre (scheduled to open summer 2025). Additional features of note include a Native American Hall of Fame, a monumental entranceway (Fig.1, 2), a welcome sculpture (Fig. 3), artworks aligned with the cardinal directions and an outdoor interpretative walk around an earthwork, 21st Century Mound Builders. This large-scale contemporary earthwork measures 27 metres high and 300 metres in diameter and was built in homage to the many millennia of mound-building activities in this region. This mound functions as a cosmological clock that tracks the sun over an annual cycle. During the winter solstice, the sun sets through the mound tunnel, creating a beam of light that hundreds of spectators witness at FAM’s annual Winter Solstice Celebration (Fig. 4).

Programming includes a comprehensive docent training program offered annually, Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations, solstice celebrations, New Year stickball, and holiday markets. Summer camps for kids (with income-scaled fees) introduce Indigenous values and stories with a focus on STEM-based activities. FAM, in partnership with Girl Scouts of Western Oklahoma, offers a unique opportunity to complete the OKLA HOMMA fun patch. Specialised tours offered for school groups include Native Heroes and ‘Fun & Games’ as well as exhibit-based tours and curriculum-based worksheets.

The ground floor exhibit OKLA HOMMA, situated in the 18,000 square-foot Tribal Nations Gallery, starts with the origin stories of different Nations before sharing some truths about the ongoing impacts of European contact, including the spread of disease that killed 95% of the pre-contact native population by the early 1800s. Interpretative stories are shared by Indigenous scholars and knowledge keepers in short, illustrated movies on panels in the exhibit areas, with supplemental information provided through maps, artwork, quotes, belongings and animated films in small multimedia areas. One of the most striking features of the exhibits is the counter-clockwise navigation, with intersecting areas of curving walls, circular rooms and reader panels laden with images and text (Fig. 5).

Dr. Mosteller shared the challenges of presenting the story of Oklahoma in this gallery:

“Oklahoma has a unique history. We not only have the 39 tribes, we were not only Indian territory. We have had that classification for so long, but the way Oklahoma was settled by non-natives with the land runs and the ‘boomer sooner’. Very intense things happen here in an intense way. It’s kind of like our weather. Everything happens quickly and rapidly and maybe it feels a little bit chaotic…it’s an intense place and I think people from Oklahoma sort of embrace that. I think there is a lot of pride in our native past history and future. I think people understand it’s complicated. There is a lot of violence in our history that the tribes have had to work to overcome, but we are not just defined by the fact that we, many of us, were removed from our homelands and brought here. There are also those tribes who were Indigenous to this place who had people moved into their homeland, having it called Indian Territory – those are hard histories, but they don’t define us. You know, we are still sovereign nations. We are also collectively the tribes of Oklahoma.

Respecting the sovereignty of each tribe is highlighting that when you go through this experience, you’re going to start having common experiences. I think being able to do both of those things to honor the individual, while at the same time respecting that there’s a collective element to it, is something that we were very intentional about. There was always a Native voice at the centre of these decisions.”

Every element of the exhibit and FAM as a whole has been purposefully selected. There are layers of context and meaning that combine to deliver powerful messages without mentioning decolonizing as a framework. The main floor exhibit includes contemporary Indigenous voices and achievements: from artwork to pow wow, to sports and military heroes. Places to rest and absorb the surroundings are included creatively throughout the exhibit space, for example, an area set up as a living room in a house, while another has van seats and windows as if you are driving to a pow wow with friends (Fig. 6, 7).

FAM does not have any human remains in storage or on display. They have chosen to include a direct critique of past and present anthropological and museological practices with a display showing how Indigenous human remains are still being displayed and / or stored in boxes and cupboards at other museums and historical institutions across the [Fig. 8]. The second floor of the exhibits also features the WINIKO: Life of an Object exhibit. This area displays belongings on long-term loan from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) that were extracted from Indigenous Nations in past centuries. Some belongings have been removed for display for FAM’s ‘Reunion’ program, whereby family members are invited to spend time with their ancestors.

According to Dr. Mosteller, the reunification work is decolonizing in action:

“These family reunions… we use the term decolonizing museums all the time… This is what it means. It means working with the loaning institution and with the tribal community members about what is appropriate. It means being able to take these things out of the case, to put them in a space where the tribal community dictates what that relationship is like. They are able to reconnect, whether it be through ceremony, whether it be through looking at it as an artifact to help them create or recreate these. Every tribe determines for themselves what is supposed to be coming from these reunions. We do not determine that. So there are some people that want to pray with it. There are others there that want to tell the story behind this object and how connected to their family. There are others who do that kind of craft work and they want to look to see things like ‘How is that secured in the back? What does the stitching look like?’

We don’t think of these as artifacts or objects. These are extensions of these families. To be able to facilitate this and let the tribes dictate what the reunion needs to look like is what decolonizing means. It’s pulling yourself and your ego back. While we are stewarding these objects, they are the caretakers of these objects. They are the family members of these objects. A museum can never take the place of that, but we can be good stewards and help facilitate those relationships.”

One of the striking things about FAM is their approach to collecting and non-interest in gathering stone tools / lithic items. Dr. Mosteller explained that FAM’s collecting strategy is about the potential for relationships rather than mass accumulation:

“We try to be very intentional. We don’t want to collect something that should go back to its own community. [Stone tools] are things that even if a tribe doesn’t have their own museum, they can steward those and caretake. For many museums, the goal is to build your collection, especially of the historical past. That is not really the mentality that we have. If we can help get the NMAI pieces that we have here now, our goal is not to get these and have them forever.

It is to be a steward and to bring these things back to their community so that their tribal members can connect to them. We do collect but we are very intentional. We’re really moving towards more contemporary pieces. When you’re dealing with a cultural centre and you’re only focused on your historic and prehistoric archaeology, you’re not focusing on the artists who are creators today. You are failing to recognize that these are living, thriving cultures. So it is just something that we have chosen not to do. I think that’s a very intentional choice and I feel very confident saying that.”

For Obinna and I, one of the major takeaways from our conversation with Dr. Mosteller was when she said, “If a Native American comes into FAM and doesn’t feel at home, we haven’t done our job.”

For more information please visit the First Americans Museum website.

Example text from a 3 minute video in the ‘Roots’ area:

Native people were really kind of students and scholars of the natural world, and very much a part of it. They formed that relationship with the Earth. That is hard to explain, because there’s no English word that can convey that attachment, that we come from the earth, that we’re a part of the Earth. This notion that it was an empty wilderness, you know, that it was wild and unpopulated… It was absolutely not true. Anywhere you step on this continent there were native people.

Indigenous life in the Americas was every bit as complex and diverse and inventive and energetic as life anywhere else in any other part of the world at the time. There is a philosophy. There’s science, there’s theology, there’s economics. Some of our ceremonial communities have been in place for over 10,000 years. And I think about even this country of the United States, which is just over 240 years old, is that this country is in its infancy when compared to Native American communities across North America.

The European system of organization and belief is very individualistic, whereas in Cherokee society there is the thought of how am I in harmony with others? How am I in harmony with the environment? How am I creating balance in the world? In our people’s traditional communities, we have an obligation to our elders, our children. And you know, here many cultures, many of our tribal nations talk about seven generations. That’s what this comes from.

Within European societies, women were viewed as property. So, to come into Cherokee society, where women own the home and land was held in communal property, their reaction to that was these individuals don’t understand how to live as a civilized society. Settlers and colonists at that time believed that America’s indigenous people were less than human.

At some point in time, our ancestors could not take that anymore, and they realized these individuals are not here to be our friends. They’re not here to be our allies. They are not here to live in harmony with the land the way that we do. We definitely see an immediate clash in value systems from individuals who were coming from Europe to colonize native North America, and the value systems of Indigenous peoples within North America. I always think about those tribal leaders and the decisions they had to make. Those decisions were monumental. The treaties were seen as a negotiation to retain land, to retain rights to that land, to hunt and fish and to maintain a way of life.

Well, there’s conflict over land. There’s conflict over values. And that’s where these different ways of life become most destructive and explosive. When Europeans start seeing themselves as replacements upon the land for the people who live there.

Parts of this article were published in Canadian Museums Association’s Winter 2024 MUSE magazine. The quote used in the blog title is from an exhibit video, Eddie Red Eagle, Jr. (Osage).