Ron Dungan
/Special for The Republic
The Amerind Museum
is nestled near the Dragoon Mountains
of southeastern Arizona.
Amerind Museum tells story of the Southwest
by Ron Dungan
- Mar. 18, 2009
The Arizona Republic
A jar of pottery sat in a cave. The Verde brown jar had been there for centuries, tucked away on the
slope of Mingus Mountain, until a Connecticut businessman, William Fulton, found it and took it home.
Fulton had always been interested in archaeology. Over time, his interest became a passion, and
the passion grew until Fulton moved to the Little Dragoon Mountains of southeast Arizona to pursue
it full-time.
In the 1930s, Fulton started to build a laboratory and museum, which would become the Amerind Foundation. The Amerind holds an impressive collection of materials. Like many modern museums, it is
more than just a place where old things gather dust. The foundation helps researchers understand the Southwest, both past and present.
"There was a time people thought that Native American cultures were disappearing," museum coordinator Carol Charnley said. But cultures are not disappearing, they are thriving, she said. One way the museum fosters this phenomenon is to bring in visiting artists to show their work.
One section of the museum is devoted to collections of pots, bowls, awls, baskets - the stuff of everyday life in the ancient world. Another displays Southwestern and contemporary Native American art.
"That's how we bridge that gap between past and present," Charnley said. "We always put Native American artists in that gallery."
In December, the work of Native American photographers was on display. A shot by Will Wilson, a Navajo who lives in Tucson, showed the inside of a hogan. The photo captured the soft light, the log walls, a computer on a desk. There was a time when a computer in such a photo might have been airbrushed out to make the photo more "authentic," but not anymore.
The museum's artifact collection goes back centuries and includes pieces from Alaska to South America. The Amerind has sponsored seminars and fieldwork, such as an excavation at Casas Grandes, a Pueblo
site in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1959.
Casas Grandes incorporates aspects of many cultures, blending northern Pueblo with Mesoamerican traits.
"They had water that would come into the community and wastewater that went out," Charnley said.
In other words, a sewage system, centuries before the invention of plumbing. The site helped show that Native cultures were not static and isolated, and that people traveled, traded extensively and exchanged ideas.
"It is a real important site," Charnley said. "That gave us a lot of credibility because a lot of museums are associated with universities." Amerind is not. Yet there it was, not just storing artifacts but advancing research. Today, the museum hosts seminars and publishes the proceedings.
Recently, a group of archaeologists met at the Amerind to discuss Jared Diamond's book Collapse, a study of ancient cultures including the Maya and Hohokam. The book asks important questions about sustainability, but archaeologists don't completely buy into its conclusions, partly because some of the societies in the book didn't collapse. They moved or adapted to changing conditions. You can still find people who speak the Mayan language, for instance, and it is widely believed that the Hohokam are the ancestors of today's O'odham.
These types of discussions are playing an increasing role in archaeology. Researchers still dig, but digging is expensive, not to mention offensive to many Native Americans, so some researchers focus on collections already formed. At the Amerind, archaeologists can have housing as well as a place to meet.
There is a great deal at the museum for the general public, as well.
In December, a cold wind blew, and storm clouds gathered above the mountain ranges of southeast Arizona - the Chiricahuas, Dragoons and Little Dragoons. On a nicer day, the picnic area would have been inviting, the grounds suitable for strolling. But it was winter, and the Amerind was framed by a dark sky.
To live in the Southwest is to embrace cloudy days, the same way we embrace the cultures, past and present, that make us what we are today.
Rain followed, and the red hills were silent.
Somehow, the weather was perfect.
Reach the reporter at
602-444-4847 or
ron.dungan@arizonarepublic.com.
