Contesting Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives

3. Reinventing George Heye: Nationalizing the Museum of the American Indian and Its Collections

65 3 Reinventing George Heye Nationalizing the Museum of the American Indian and Its Collections ann mcmullen Nothing but Stories The year 2004 was important for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian (nmai). For many, nmai’s opening on Washington dc’s National Mall marked the fulfillment of overdue obligations and long-awaited dreams. Few recognized that 2004 also marked a forgotten anniversary: a century had passed since George Gustav Heye began cataloging the objects in the museum’s collection. Press coverage repeatedly mentioned nmai’s roots in New York’s Museum of the American Indian but referred to Heye as a “passionate,” “obsessive,” and “rapacious ” collector and a “buccaneer.” Directly or indirectly responsible for removing treasured objects from Native hands or lands, Heye’s contributions could hardly be commemorated. However, Mr. Richard Kessler noticed this treatment and addressed himself to the Washington Post: “The Smithsonian is ignoring and . . . demeaning the contribution of its chief benefactor. . . . Mr. Heye, whom The Post disdainfully called a ‘boxcar’ collector , . . . contributed his entire collection for public use and exhibition. . . . But for his ‘boxcar’ collection, we’d have no Museum of the American Indian today. . . . It is high time for the ingrates in charge of this museum . . . to acknowledge and credit their benefactor.” It is doubtful that nmai staff members would have disagreed with Kessler’s remarks, because the image of Heye portrayed by the press was delivered to reporters in their nmai press kits.1 Few at the nmai think or speak about Heye except to repeat similar second- and thirdhand anecdotes and sound bites that are learned by 66 mcmullen watching and emulating others. As Thomas King suggests in The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative, “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.”2 And like any mythology, stories told about Heye have grown over generations, and their roots are often shadowed or unknown. As defined by Eric Hobsbawm, this is the stuff of invented traditions, those “invented, constructed and formally instituted . . . within a brief and dateable period.”3 Here I explore the invention of George Heye and how his image has been shaped by nmai’s need to serve a different mission than Heye himself espoused. Because nmai simultaneously holds part of the national collections and supports Native empowerment, explicating Heye’s collection involves both U.S. and Indigenous nationalism and generates interesting rhetoric. Regarding rhetoric—the persuasive use of language—others have used the same texts I employ here to support very different interpretations of George Heye. Ideas for this essay arose during my work on nmai’s collections planning documents.4 Struck by nmai rhetoric about Heye, I sought alternative background materials. At first I only hoped to understand Heye’s transition from collector to museum founder but was caught up in uncovering a very different story. At this point, I make no claim to exhaustive research on George Heye and his intent; but given readily available material that contradicts prevailing nmai stories, I suggest that those who have described Heye only as an obsessive and even nefarious collector have done so based on their own preconceptions or disregard for contradictory evidence. Nonetheless, while I believe George Heye’s story is more complex and more honorable than how it has been told, I doubt my version will totally rehabilitate him. He was—like anyone—a man of his time. However, for the nmai, he remains an inconvenient truth and has become a victim of its self-told history. There is more to this than simply correcting Heye’s biography. While discussing this essay with a group of coworkers, I explained Heye’s intent in creating his museum. Among the dissonant voices, I heard a Pawnee man who escorts Native and non-Native collections researchers say, “What do you mean? I thought he was just a crazy white man—that’s what we tell everybody!” He realized that labeling George Heye as an obsessive Reinventing George Heye 67 collector who accumulated objects solely to own them also dehistoricized the collections and implied that they grew randomly. He recognized that nmai could—and should—take responsibility for understanding Heye’s motivations and how the collection was formed. Investigation of collectors and their impact on museums—including how collections were assembled, how collectors have shaped what is preserved in museums, and how collections can be integral to knowledge projects—is not a new...