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Menominee Women painting

This oil painting by Samuel M. Brookes from 1858 is the accompaniment to the painting of Menominee men from the same year. The subject matter is exceptionally rare because it is a portrait of American Indian women. It is a visual record of the ways in which these women used European goods, such as textiles and glass beads, and fashioned them into their own aesthetic. The imagery also represents the gradual fading out of traditional Menominee materials due to trade.

Item Image
menominee painting
Catalog Number
E65663
Accession Number
27931
59

MPM Collection

Ndyuka artifacts are on permanent display at MPM.

There is also a reconstructed façade of a house and two black and white photographs of daily life; a stool; peanut grinding board; combs; food stirrers; and calabash spoons. The exhibit case, called "Bush Negro of Suriname South America" is located on the third floor of the Museum, at the end of the African Hall and the beginning of the South American Hall.

60661.47

A rather dilapidated Mambila compound in the Southern part of the Mambila near the River Agetegau and near Kaka and Mfunte. The young man is just drinking some corn beer, which is being warmed by the fire. The young woman on the left is rubbing camwood and oil into a loin cloth, probably that of her husband. Nigeria.
Catalog Number
60661.47

Portrait of Chief Oshkosh

Originally from England, Samuel M. Brookes moved to Milwaukee in the 1840s and found a niche in the local art scene by painting portraits. He was commissioned by the Wisconsin State Historical Society in 1858 to paint important Native American chiefs and settlers of the area. This large oil painting is supposedly of the Menominee chief named Oshkosh. A tremendous amount of dignity is visible in the expression and posture of the man in the painting, along with a sense of his importance in Wisconsin history.

Item Image
chief oshkosh painting
Catalog Number
E50402
Accession Number
27931
96
Catalog Number : 60625
Accession Number : 21591
Accession Date : 11/25/1968
Region : Nigeria, Adamawa Province, Warwar
Material : cotton, camwood, palm oil

History of Trinidad

Little is known about the history of Trinidad or Tobago before Christopher Columbus landed on their shores in 1498.  By the 1300s, the island was largely populated by Arawak and Carib Indian populations, of which little physical trace remains.  These populations were largely wiped out under the Spanish encomienda system, which pressured Indians to convert to Christianity and labor as slaves on Spanish Mission lands in exchange for “protection”.