Coffee & Curators: Plains Indian Museum Center of the West members, we invite you to join us for refreshments and a curator talk focused on our Plains Indian Museum. Our Coffee & Curators series invites members to enjoy coffee, refreshments, and each other as one of our curators speaks about a topic inspired by the […]
Originally published in Points West magazineFall/Winter 2017 Launching the Plains Indian Museum By Peter H. Hassrick, PhD One of the key milestones in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s hundred-year history is the addition of the Plains Indian Museum in 1979. As director at the time, Dr. Peter H. Hassrick has a unique perspective […]
Originally published in Points West magazineSummer 2016 The Tipi Blends Function and Elegance By Gene Ball From the Archives: Gene Ball, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s former education coordinator, penned this article in 1979. Note that the three words—tipi, tepee, and teepee—are virtually interchangeable; here at the Center of the West, we use […]
The Plains Indian Museum doesn’t only collect art from the past. Rebecca West, the curator of the museum, said their job is also to collect contemporary art like those of John Isaiah Pepion, of the Blackfeet nation in northern Montana. “It’s based on what we call more traditional art forms. And when we say traditional, […]
The curator and curatorial assistant of the Plains Indian Museum once noticed an odd odor in one of the museum’s storage areas. This isn’t something that is welcome in museum collections since it usually means something is getting ruined. As they were trying to find where the stench was coming from, they noticed a bulky rawhide parfleche […]
Originally featured in Points West magazine in Fall/Winter 2018 Mandan Burden Basket In summer 2018, Plains Indian Museum staff had the opportunity to engage in some unexpected fieldwork with unanticipated connections. While not our specialty, ethnobotany, the study of how human cultures use plants for food and medicinal purposes, is of great interest. Our collections […]