A decade ago, in a Peru, Indiana surplus school building converted into tribal headquarters, Ray O. White, the late chief of the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana, told an audience of three, "If people were just made aware of all the history of Indians in the state of Indiana, that could eliminate a lot of stereotypes."

A new permanent exhibit at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis is attempting to fill exactly this void with the June 22 opening of a new gallery, Mihtohseenionki: The People's Place. Launched in conjunction with the festivities surrounding the museum's 10th anniversary, the gallery and exhibition (presented by Ameritech) thrust us into the vibrant past, present and future of the region's original inhabitants-members of the impressive Woodlands cultures that once roamed America's heartland.

Brandishing a map of U.S. Indian reservations, exhibit developer Tricia O'Connor points to the inkless six states bordering the Ohio River. It's a big hole-not a single reservation in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia and Kentucky.
How to interpret that fact is the exhibit team's challenge. "You can say there are no Indians here," states O'Connor. "Or, you could disprove the assumption," which is what O'Connor and Ray Gonyea, the Eiteljorg's curator of Native American art and culture, are doing. Through diligent cultural sleuthing, they've managed to illuminate the rich heritage of the region's tenacious indigenous peoples, whose traditions and influence have endured through time and immense changes in a society where they are rendered nearly invisible.

Visitors will be greeted by a montage of Native American faces from today and from the past when they enter the gallery. They can watch a brief orientation video, and peruse a large selection of art and artifacts from the Miami Nation, the Potawatomi Band, the Delaware people and other tribes. Native artisans, storytellers and other practitioners of traditional customs will also occasionally provide presentations and demonstrations, proving that Woodlands peoples continue even today to pursue their age-old lifeways.

Through interactive video and interpretive programs, visitors will meet Scott Shoemaker making traditional Miami moccasins, Joe Baker re-creating original Delaware men's bandolier bags, Lois Beardslee doing Ojibwe-Lacandon quillwork and sweet-grass weaving, John Pigeon harvesting black ash trees for Pokagon Potawatomi market baskets, Penny Bishop cutting and sewing Citizen Band Potawatomi ribbonwork designs onto a wearing blanket, and Don Secondine fashioning silver brooches for Delaware women dancers.

The newly made pieces are displayed alongside items from 200, 100 and 50 years ago. Visitors can see for themselves how designs were altered to accommodate available materials and in response to new and different social experiences.

For example, traditional Woodlands men's leggings do not have pockets, explains Gonyea, so a man wore a shoulder bag for personals he might need during the day, such as a hairbrush, face paints, shell tweezers, emergency tools like a repair sewing kit and fire-making tools, and something representing his personal spiritual helper-which he never went anywhere without.

The exhibit illustrates how an astute observer can date and geographically identify a bag by recognizing the external influences and events incorporated into everyday objects. The bandolier bags on exhibit tell the story of one group of Delawares as they were pushed westward from their original homeland along the Atlantic seaboard by Euro-American encroachment, with succeeding relocations taking them to their current Bartlesville, Oklahoma location. Thanks to a brief but deeply imprinted sojourn along Wapi-hanne, the White River, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these descendants of Chief Anderson retain connections with Indiana. Given safe haven by the Miamis, the Delawares built villages, believing as did other indigenous peoples that Indiana territory meant just that-an Indian homeland. They have never given up believing.

By the mid-19th century, the U.S. Government, breaking treaties, forced almost all Indiana Indians westward across the Mississippi. Those left included a few families of Miamis and Potawatomis, who negotiated a dramatically reduced land base; a handful of Shawnees who went into hiding; and many individuals from other tribes who forswore their heritage and slipped into being White.

A state-of-the-art map will allow visitors to see the Native American influences on Indiana. Electronic overlays show how the place names we're familiar with today, such as Maumee (Miami), sprang from indigenous roots. Visitors can see other cultures move into the region, track the gradual loss of tribal lands, identify the sites of major historic events, and, finally, see a map of present-day Indiana.

The exhibit's timelines make history come alive through items of material culture. General Anthony Wayne's flag is one example. During the negotiations of the 1795 Greenville Treaty, General Anthony Wayne had a number of flags made that he later gave to each of the chiefs of the twelve tribes he had negotiated with. One flag-on display-ended up in the Indiana Historical Bureau, but according to Miami oral tradition it was originally given to Shemahconish, peace chief of the Eel River Miami, and was handed down through his descendants. Visitors to the exhibit will come away with a story even more historically inspiring than the better-known Betsy Ross saga.

Because descendants of the territory's original inhabitants now number less than 10 percent of Indiana's current Native American population of almost 40,000 (the bulk are contemporary arrivals), telling the original Woodlands Nations story becomes all the more important. They have survived displacement and upheaval, and the very fact they are still alive is significant.

People should-and now do-have the privilege of being able to learn about the Woodlands peoples of the nation's heartland. As Chief White once said, "If you are willing to make the journey, I will help you."