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Introduction

The Third Floor Mezzanine (Pre-Columbian America) is permanently closed to the public as part of the next phase of packing for our new museum. Take a virtual tour of the gallery here.

Mesoamerica, a term used for the community of cultures found in southern Mexico and northern Central America from 2500 B.C.

To the Maya of the modern Lake Amatitlán communities, the lake has a longstanding tradition as a sacred place. During Pre-Columbian times, according to legend (see Borhegyi 1959:237-38, Suzanne de Borhegyi 1961), a carved stone figure known as Jefe Dios occupied a hilltop on the north shore of the lake. One night in the 17th century, during a violent hailstorm and earthquake, the figure disappeared. In the morning, the small, painted wooden statue of the Santo Niño, the Christ Child, stood at the water's edge at the base of the cliff.

Potawatomi Culture

Potawatomi speak a language of the Algonkian language family and have lived in the Great Lakes region for at least four centuries. Throughout their history, the Potawatomi have moved and been moved many times, but their aboriginal territory was in Michigan’s lower peninsula. Oral traditions of the Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Ottawa assert that at one time, all three tribes were one people who lived at the Straits of Mackinac.

Works Cited: 05/24/2011 (Modified January 2013)

Works Cited and Additional Resources:

Altorfer, Kurt R. Die Prähistorischen Feuchtbodensiedlungen von Wetzikon-Robenhausen: Auswertung der Altgrabungen Jakob Messikommers 1858-1917. Lizentiatsarbeit, Universität Zürich, 2000.‡

Adamson, Joy. The Peoples of Kenya. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc., 1967.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books, 1999.

Barrett, Samuel A. and Ira Edwards, eds. Yearbook of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 1928: the Cudahy-Massee-Milwaukee Public Museum African Expedition, 1928-29. Milwaukee, WI: North American Press, 1930.