American Indian Objects
- Dates: September 23, 1938 through October 31, 1938
- Collections: Arts of the Americas
Fall approximately 1938: On Friday, September 23 the Brooklyn Museum will open a special exhibition of American Indian materials from the Museum collections. This is material not usually shown to the public and an addition to the Collections permanently on display in the geographically arranged hall of American Indian Art. The special exhibition is sponsored by the Community Folk Arts Committee in connection with the American Indian Festival opening with a program of music and dance in the Sculpture Court of the Museum at 3:00 P. M. on Saturday the 24th.
Indian tribes of the Southwest, Northwest Coast, Western Plains and Eastern Woodlands are represented in the exhibition by characteristic handicrafts. Notable among the objects shown are a delicately carved Jemez ceremonial flute, a Zuni bull-roarer and other musical instruments, a feather and shell wand from the Zuni stick-swallowing society, an image of the Zuni war-god with abalone shell necklace and pendant, brightly colored Hopi ceremonial wands, a Kwakiutl rattle carved in the shape of a seagull, a flute in the shape of a whale and a beautifully carved singing-master’s baton, a large carved wooden figure that looks like a contemporary sculptor’s idea of a modern dancer, a similar piece of a piggy-back ride with the "piggy" looking very unhappy, a very finely carved chief’s rattle, ornate neckpieces of fur decorated with claws, a most fearsome headdress composed of bright crimson hair, feathers and curved horns, a large hollow wooden whale used in a ceremonial dance, and two Blackfoot peace—pipes with bowls of a fine quality of red soap stone very beautifully carved and polished. One of the more unusual objects is a large bowl carved of bark and ornamented with two small heads. It is of a rare type and has never been exhibited before.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1937 - 1939. 09-10_1938, 141. View Original