Tornado Alley (PROG)

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hookrider, The View From/Ledyard; The Flag Shows Up In American Indian Art

.. re Native American attitudes toward the Stars and Stripes .. this one is interesting ..

By TINA KELLEY
Published: November 28, 1999

AFTER the American Indian sun dance ceremony was prohibited by the federal government in the 1880's, some bands of Lakota Indians would gather in large groups during the summer to sing, celebrate and dance around a pole much like the one they had used in their traditional ritual of Thanksgiving. On top of it, they flew the American flag, which also decorated the clothing of warriors and children. It was, at least from the outside, a Fourth of July celebration, and the military was less likely to break up what appeared to be a patriotic fete.

Over the years, Indian artists have used the flag as a bounty, a protective talisman, a profitable, decorative motif, or a mark of honor for warriors. Now, one of the more unusual windows on the nation's past can be seen at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Ledyard, near the Foxwoods Resort Casino, which is hosting ''The Flag in American Indian Art.''

The exhibition, which runs through Jan. 2, includes moccasins, leggings, a headdress for a horse, baskets, a holster, a pillow sham and a ''possible bag,'' a bag for every possible thing, used by a nomadic Sioux band from the Dakotas or Minnesota. The beadwork shines in cases in the dimly lit gallery.

Early in the battles between Indians and the United State Army, the flag was considered a trophy, which would be worn as a garment or decorated with beads.

''Indian warriors understood it was a power symbol, and if they could attain or capture the flag, therefore they could have access to that power,'' said Sherry Brydon, curator of Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw collection of Indian art at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., where the exhibit originated.

But the flag was more than a symbol of an oppressive government.

''In the 1880's this shifted, and the flag became a symbol of protection, in that if you were a group of native people and had the U.S. Army around you as a constant threat, you would fly the flag and it could potentially protect you. But that didn't always stop them from attacking native people,'' Ms. Brydon said.

By 1890, the time of the massacre of the Miniconjous Lakota at Wounded Knee by the 7th Cavalry, the stars and stripes had already been widely incorporated in Native American art, particularly among the plains tribes. After the last bullets were fired at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, a young girl named Lost Bird was found, half frozen but still alive, wearing a bonnet decorated with an American flag sewn out of tiny beads.

In the early decades of the new century, native craftspeople, especially those confined to reservations, created beadwork for sale to the tourists exploring the west. The flag was popular around the country, and objects decorated with it sold well. In later years, as a large number of Indians fought in the world wars, Vietnam and Desert Storm, the flag was used on clothing to distinguish the wearer as a veteran or a relative of one.

''Through the flag, the individual warrior is honored, recognized and memorialized; it symbolizes the prowess of the individual warrior, not patriotism,'' Howard Bad Hand, a member of the Lakota tribe, wrote in the exhibit's catalog.

John Holder, a member of the Pequot tribe who won a Purple Heart in Vietnam, was very impressed by the show and its positive depiction of the flag.

''The artwork was incredible. I don't know what to make of the fact that they were using the American flag,'' he said. ''I guess they felt enough allegiance to the flag to reproduce it in their artwork.''

JoAllyn Archambault, director of the American Indian program at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian, said modern understanding of the motifs in the exhibit is based on educated guesses.

''When people were incorporating this symbol into this art nobody was asking the question, 'Why are you doing this?' '' she said.

The flag appears in many variations in the exhibit, which includes flags with no white stripes, one with four stars, one with a white grid on blue for a field of stars, and one with the pole extending from the upper right corner.

Often the stars have four points, instead of five, which was easier to execute and more in keeping with the Indian motifs, which honored the four directions.

''When it's a flag, which everybody recognizes, all of the sudden it can get people with no background in Native American art or history to think about symbolism,'' said Stephen Cook, assistant curator of the exhibit.

''This is a very powerful statement, in that sense.''

Photos: At left, students from the Linden Street School in Plainville look at an exhibit in the ''The Flag in American Indian Art'' at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center near the Foxwoods Resort Casino. Above, a horse mask, and right, a pouch made from hide, glass and metal beads. The show runs through Jan. 2. (Photographs by George Ruhe for The New York Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/28/nyregion/the-view-from-ledyard-the-flag-shows-up-in-american-indian-art.html

.. i don't see the photos at left ..