Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Disappointment: Museum of the American Indian

The Smithsonian opened this one a while ago, but it's still pretty new in my book.  The building architecture is strange, no style known to me, does not suggest any sort of Indian architecture, an odd colored yellow stone facing, a fine location right on the Mall. 
   Collections were mediocre to poor.  The Inca floor had only a few nondescript earth colored pots.  A lot of stuff from the twentieth century.  Dating was vague.  The older things were all dated 1432-1547.  The modern stuff was mostly dated 1960-2000.  You would think they could date things more closely than +/- fifty years.  And the curators flunk spelling.  They spell Inca with a K.  Consistently.
   And it's pretty political for a museum.  As everyone knows, there are a lot of Indian groups with grievances against the white man.  A lot of such groups had posters or even whole displays supporting their points of view.  Your tax dollars at work. 

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