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Jennifer Rhoads
Museum/ Mausoleum
Research Paper
Yakama Cultural and Heritage Center/ Museum
The Yakama Nation Museum produces the notion of community and
culture, not just representing the community and culture of the Yakama Nation.
This implication was noted by Andrea Witcomb in her book Re-Imagining the
Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum in her reference to Tony Bennett’s Culture: A
Reformer’s Science (p.80). 1This is further emphasized on the Confederated
Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation’s official website under the Tribal
Programs; Yakama Nation Museum. “The emphasis of the museum is to serve
the Yakama Tribal members, develop exhibits and dioramas, to emphasize the
positive history of the Native people, and to create and emphasize positive selfesteem for our Yakama people.”2
The Cultural Center was established in 1980 with the purpose of
educating all people about the Yakama Tribes. Grants allowed the Cultural
Center to be built; the library at the Cultural Center was established through an
API (Advanced Placement Incentive program) Grant for the purpose of
reconnecting Native youth with the written and oral heritage of the Plateau
tribes3. Through this grant the Heritage Theater was enabled to bring in
storytellers to perform the stories of the Yakama’s heritage. By reconnecting the
1
Re-Imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum by Andrea Witcomb, excerpt from Tony Bennett
“Culture: A Reformer’s Science”
2
“Yakama Nation| Official Site of the Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation.”
http://www.yakamanation-nsn.gov/programs.php
3
“Building Strong Communities Through the Arts” Washington State Arts Commission: Arts Participation
Initiative 2002-2007
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youth with their cultural heritage the goal of instilling pride and honor into the
Yakama youth opened the door for teaching them about resource management
and conservation. In doing so many programs have opened to protect Cultural
Resources; artifacts, remains, buildings and foundations, and natural resources
such as: fishing areas, wildlife refuges, plants, water and even air quality.
In the walls of the museum the public is greeted by an etched glass panel
of the state of Washington with the Yakama ceded lands in clear outlines,
followed by the Yakama Reservation in fogged opaque outlines. Behind the
panel viewers are enveloped by a diorama of natural resources used by the
Yakama Tribes. Plants and animals of the tribes’ stories exist in this diorama, but
little is told about them; yet for anyone aware of the Tribes’ legends these
animals and plants hold a significant double meaning. The Huckleberry for
example can be viewed in the diorama, but the legend is absent with the only
information available in a pamphlet encouraging museum visitors to take their
own steps in taking care of the environment so that huckleberries can continue to
be an enjoyed resource for everyone. 4
Yet, these are not the only concerns filtered throughout the museum,
beyond the Cultural Conservation and management of resources. The Yakama
people have taken measures to make visitors aware of “The Dilemma of the
Yakama Wild Horses”. Not only are the wild Yakama Horses outgrowing the
available resources they have to survive on the constant foraging of the horses
damages the environment because their numbers consume the plants at such a
4
“Protecting The Huckleberry Fields Forever”. Yakama Nation Fish/ Wildlife Enforcement
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rate that the plants cannot recover enough before the growing season is over to
prevent soil erosion. This also presents a problem for traditional root gathering
areas.5
Solutions to the problems of damages done to the plants by animals and
by humans were presented in the most humane methods currently feasible. The
huckleberries and other plants consumed in the Yakama lands are regulated
through permits obtained from the Tribes’ and National Park associations. While
the wild horse population is controlled by Yakama Wildlife Biologists and tribal
horse chasers who capture and sell the horses to willing buyers. However, due to
the economic downfall these reasonable solutions have also come to hard times,
buyers for the horses have declined and due to fire suppression in the
huckleberry fields trees have begun encroaching upon the once plentiful fields.
These dilemmas are not uncommon to other museums in the world;
especially when it comes to museums that move towards the preservation and
prolongation of cultures. The Yakama Nation Museum is unique in its museum
type, that it was created by the same culture that has established the museum.
Museums that are specific to a singular culture face the difficulties of being too
positive or too negative in its portrayal of the culture it represents; or the museum
is totally unrepresentative of other cultures. The Yakama Nation Museum
however is singularly representative of the Indigenous People, but has
recognized major influences of Native American history and accepts the
hardships of its culture and is unabashed in telling the public about them. It is
5
“Dilemma of Yakama Wild Horses”, n.d.
http://www.angelfire.com/trek/wildhorses/dilemma.html.
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because of this acceptance that the Yakama Tribes have come to the mission of
overcoming the prejudice that has plagued them and countless others throughout
the centuries.
Starting in the mid 1800’s Native Americans across the country were
being moved to reservations where they could be contained and educated in the
ways of White American society in order to train them to be correct in the way
people should live according to Jeffersonian principles of agrarianism. The
children of the Yakama people were taken from their homes for schooling,
eventually forced into militarism boarding schools year round such as the Fort
Simcoe Yakama Boarding School located miles from the main reservation. 6 The
cruelties suffered at these boarding schools were nothing short of the atrocities
done in the Concentration Camps throughout history. Hardships for the First
Peoples continued through the 20th century; equal opportunity was a policy that
was not implemented until 1964 which in effect lead many Native Americans to
drop out of school in order to help their families make ends meet, this lead to
higher levels of teen pregnancy and the development of gangs.
As problems continued the elders of the Yakama tribes sought solutions to
help their youth succeed in life instead of falling into disrepute. The most obvious
solution was to keep their kids in school so they could earn an education. This is
a difficult solution to implement in areas where the economy has been run down.
Much of the ceded lands the Yakama owned were leased out to farmers, bringing
much needed economy to Yakama. Since the farms produced during the first
6
Away From Their Barbarous Influences: The Yakama Boarding School at Fort Simcoe by James Smith of
the Yakama Nation, excerpt from his master thesis “To Assimilate the Children: The Boarding School at
Chemawa, 1880-1930”
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three seasons of the year many families could ease the struggles of not making
enough to live on. Yet, this was not enough to support the growing population;
tourism was then introduced to the cities of Yakama, Wapato and Toppenish (all
a part of the Yakama Reservation). The start of tourism allowed many museums
in the area to open depicting the story of the cities, with the Yakama Nation
Museum being the oldest.
With the building of tourism and an influx of migrant workers the problems
with gangs soon began again7. In order to quell the rising tensions between the
Yakama and the migrant workers the tribal council revamped the mission of the
museum, and introduced the Allied Arts’ Mariachi Music Education Project along
with the Heritage Library located at the Cultural Center.
In effect the conflicting cultures were given tools to express their pride in
their heritage and share it with others to bring more understanding and tolerance
of one another. To continue building a bond of community the Yakama Nation
Museum brings together elements of the Yakama heritage, Migrant heritage and
Resource Management (acting through the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries)
in the manner of the exhibits; from the evolution the fisheries and the farming
currently done in the area. By doing this the Yakama Nation Museum is an
example of Bennett’s second implication of museums not just being institutions
that represent cultures but institutions that produce community and culture.
7
Yakima Herald: Newspaper archives December 1997 to February 2012; Dec.10, 1997 Greg Tuttle
“Witness says he saw defendant shoot into crowd”
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