That the MPM endures as one of the finest institutions of its kind in the world is due in no small part to efforts of the Museum’s first Curator of Anthropology, Samuel A. Barrett (1879-1965). Barrett, born in Conway, Alaska, was a student of University of California anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the first person to receive a PhD in anthropology west of the Mississippi (Lurie 1983: 48).
Long, long ago, people did not live on the Earth. Instead, they lived in the Sky World, and things were very similar to what we think of as life on Earth. There were people, birds, animals, and everything else in the Sky World.
Around 800 A.D. Late Woodland Indian cultures in the Midwest made a shift to more extensive maize (corn) horticulture and by 1000 A.D. had organized a complex society referred to by archaeologists as Middle Mississippian. This distinct cultural name is derived from its development in the central part of the Mississippi River valley.
Peter French donated 51 Ndyuka artifacts to the MPM in 1945, constituting the vast majority of Suriname artifacts in the collection. These items included wooden food stirrers, combs, hammocks, calabash utensils, a baton, a laundry beater, and a white clay (pemba) sample. Unfortunately, not much is known about the life or work of this particular source.
Despite changes wrought by contact with Euro-American cultures and societies, Native people in the Great Lakes region have maintained a strong sense of communal life and family organization, and have persevered in many traditional ways of life while simultaneously accommodating themselves to American society and its economy.
Schlitz Audubon Nature Center is 185 acres of woodlands, prairies, various types of wetlands, and lake beach natural communities. Surface waters include ponds, Mystery Lake, and Lake Michigan. The diversity of ecosystems creates many ecotones that can attract a number of organisms.