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Native American Heritage Day at National museum

Washington –People who live within driving distance of Washington, D.C.,
have created a new tradition of visiting the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of the American Indian on the day after Thanksgiving.

That Friday is marked across the nation by trips to shopping malls, but
last year 10,508 people visited, making it the museum’s busiest day of the
year at NMAI.

This year the museum will also commemorate the first Native American
Heritage Day. The heritage day was established last month by Congress to
encourage recognition of tribal government, celebrate Native cultures and
languages and to acknowledge “the rich Native American cultural legacy.”

The museum plans to give away thousands of buttons for Native American
Heritage Day. Extra staff including museum managers will be on the floor
greeting families.

“I am personally going to be on the floor like many of our staff who aren’t
normally on the floor,” said Maggie Bertin, NMAI Associate Director, Museum
Resources. “We are going to meet people and help people celebrate this
first heritage day.”

Nationally-recognized storytellers Dovie Thomason, who is Kiowa, Apache and
Lakota, and Sunny Dooley, who is Navajo, will entertain and educate.
Dooley, who is from the Chi Chil’ Tah community at Navajo, said she didn’t
relate as a school child to the Indian depicted in the Thanksgiving story.
Now she is glad that people can learn about the unique and diverse Native
American cultures at a place like NMAI.

“I am happy to be going to tell stories, and of all the families who come,
I am grateful,” Dooley said. “I think they will learn a lot about Navajo
culture.”