People of the Earth

I met Emily Moazami in October of 2018 during my Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in Washington, D.C. It was my first time in the capital and my first experience working with the Smithsonian museums. My initial goal was to research Apsáalooke (Crow) delegations using the photography archives and material objects at the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Anthropological Archives, and the National Museum of Natural History. Emily, assistant head archivist at the National Museum of the American Indian’s Archive Center, not only produced material pertaining to my research topic but led me to discover a personal connection—a direct link to my ancestors whose images and artifacts are housed in the museum.

In this conversation, Emily and I discuss the photography collections of the National Museum of the American Indian and some of my discoveries from my research, as well as questions about the care of these precious materials. We also talk about the importance of collaboration between communities and institutions in building connections that strengthen the collective knowledge and history of the Archive Center’s holdings.

Wendy Red Star: The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) has a vast collection. But a lot of these images don’t have identification when it comes to Native people. What is your process at the museum for identifying Native people?

: Unfortunately, a lot of photographers didn’t record the names of Native peoples because they saw them as archetypes of noble savages and a dying race. We are working hard to repersonalize these images and add people’s names to the archival records. Many identifications actually come from descendants