Kenosha museum immerses guests in American Indian culture

By Michael Burke
Journal Times

Monday, November 17, 2008 6:07 PM CST

KENOSHA — While many people tuned in to the Packers and Bears Sunday, others checked out the Indians at the Kenosha Public Museum.

Woodland Native Americans starred in the museum’s monthly Sunday Funday at the museum, on the lakefront at 5500 First Ave.

The event featured tribal drumming, displays and crafts for children. Those events are anchored by the museum’s approximately 3,500-square-foot permanent exhibit, Four Seasons North American Village.

The village is an enormous step up from the small dioramas of the old Kenosha museum. “There was nothing so immersive or large,” said Curator of Collections Gina Radandt.

The village is part of a $2.5 million exhibit, “The Wisconsin Story,” a chronological walk through time in southeastern Wisconsin.

The current museum was a seven-year, $9.6 million project which opened in 2001, Radandt said. “What (the museum) did for our membership was huge,” she said.

The stars of Sunday’s event were the Night Eagle Singers, a group from the area that includes about six different tribes. They formed about 15 years ago, practice weekly and travel around the country to perform, said William Brown, who led the drumming and singing Sunday.

Brown, 30, an engineer from Pleasant Prairie, said he is Creek Indian on his father’s side and Lakota on his mother’s. He learned the song from tribal elders while growing up.

The songs, he said, come from across the country, and most are in a particular tribal language. Among the songs they performed Sunday, Brown said, included one about a battle between the Potawatomi and Lakota, and one about just feeling good.

“The songs can be very old,” he said, but there are also people composing new ones.

The songs are sung to the accompaniment of a single drum; Brown’s is wooden with a rawhide skin.

“The drum is symbolic of the Earth,” he said. “It’s not just an instrument, but it’s giving a heartbeat to the Earth.”

All of the Night Eagle Singers have some American Indian blood, but it’s not required for participation, Brown said.

“Our culture is something we share, as long as it’s done in a respectful way,” he said.

In the museum’s two classrooms, children, including the three boys of Dan and Kelly Ficker of Beach Park, Ill., busily crafted miniature canoes and wigwams from brown paper.

For more information about the museum, call (262) 653-4140 or visit

http://www.kenosha.org/museum

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