American Indian art exhibit shows interaction with West

SALEM, Mass.  --A coat, modeled after a Russian officer's overcoat but made from sea lion intestines and esophagus -- materials traditionally used by the Aleuts for waterproof clothes -- hangs in one corner.

In another corner, a Tlingit dancing blanket, emblazoned with the abstract image of a killer whale, is draped on a wall. It was made before 1832 -- long before abstract art was popular or even considered art by Europeans.

The "Uncommon Legacies" exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum presents early American Indian art that often was dismissed by westerners as artifacts or everyday objects. It also displays how tribal artists seamlessly incorporated outside cultural influences into their work.

"This showcases the interaction between Native American art and the artists, their cultures and the West," said museum director Dan Monroe, who has long studied American Indian cultures. "We hope this will help people see how esthetically rich and complex Native American art is and how their work is embodied in their culture and everyday life."

The Peabody Essex, which reopened in June after a $125 million renovation, boasts many of the country's oldest American Indian works dating to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Monroe said.

"Legacies" which has returned to Salem after being displayed at Stanford University, the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, will run through Dec. 14. After that, the exhibits will be incorporated into the museum's Native American Art gallery.

The exhibition includes works made as early as 1750 and brought back to Salem by mariners, the military and missionaries from around the world.

The colors are still vibrant centuries after they were created -- like the bright red beaded collar from Maine's Penobscot tribe and the feathered headdresses from Brazil with hues of yellow, orange and blue.

The red collar with white bead embroidery made in the mid-19th century shows how traded goods from white America -- beads, wool and silk -- made its way into tribal culture and life, said Karen Kramer, an assistant curator for the exhibit.

Other objects, including the Aleut coat designed like a Russian officer's jacket, a Haida ship panel pipe adorned with small carvings of colonial houses, and trays decorated with woven porcupine quills but suited to Victorian tastes, demonstrate how tribal artists incorporated Euro-American motifs and catered to tourists and traders.

Two ceremonial sashes with intricate bead designs are remnants of an infamous passage in American Indian history. These emblems of Choctaw identity were used at a time when thousands of Choctaws, Seminoles, Cherokees and others were forced to walk the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma in the early 19th century.

Even everyday objects display intricate carvings and craftsmanship, showing the importance that American Indians placed on them.

A halibut hook, probably from the Tlingit tribe of the Pacific Northwest, has a carving of a sea creature. Hunters and fishermen would often use tools with carvings of the creature they were hunting, to tap into the strength of their prey, Kramer said.

"It's a pretty intricate carving for something that a fish is just going to chomp," Kramer said. "You might never get it back, yet they took such care to embody the animal's spirit into their hunting tools."

Betty Dyer, 75, of Marblehead, was amazed at the bead and quill weavings and handiwork as she walked through the exhibit.

"Some of these are really exquisite. Many people don't even realize such things exist," Dyer said. "But it is our country. Our heritage."