Enjoy the delicious Indigenous cuisine of Ketapanen Kitchen, Chicago's first Native American pop-up kitchen and catering company.
The Museum's Chamacoco Collection consists of 70 objects, such as this belt ornament made of tropical bird feathers, and represent items both for everyday use and for ceremonies. Collected in 1925 by the Museum of the American Indian in New York, they came to the Milwaukee Public Museum that same year. The Chamacoco live in the Gran Chaco region of northwest Paraguay. The Chamacoco today alternate between their traditional hunting and gathering and more recent light agriculture, craftsmanship, or labor. Their population has dwindled from several thousand to approximately 1,000 people today, and few museums in the United States have such collections.
Milford Chandler was an automotive engineer and collector of American Indian material. He did most of his collecting between 1915 and 1926 while living in Chicago. The Miami material was collected by him in Peru, Indiana. The material includes a woman's robe, a pair of woman's leggings, a pair of men's leggings, and a hair ornament. The majority of the Miami were relocated in the 1800s to Oklahoma. Those who stayed in Indiana became largely acculturated into American society; as a result, material culture from the Indiana Miami is quite rare.
Trinidad, one of the islands forming the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in the southern Caribbean, has been ruled by several previous European powers, the last being Great Britain. On this small island, people from the various cultures of Asia, Europe, Africa, and native groups live and interact. This rare collection is from the East Indian peoples on the island and was collected by Milwaukee Public Museum Curator of Anthropology Dr. Arthur Niehoff in 1957. The East Indians were brought to the island by the British as indentured servants. The collection, one of only a few in the United States, is important since it shows the cultural exchange and influence that has occurred between the East Indians and the other groups inhabiting the island.
These playing cards are from the Apache, an American Indian tribe living in Arizona. Apache playing cards are thought to be influenced by the Spanish, however the cards' decorations are distinctly of the traditional Apache artistic style. Made of rawhide and decorated with a variety of pictorial designs, the cards represent numbers or face card values. Playing cards had widespread use by the Apache during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were even traded for by non-Apache groups. There are not many complete card sets, such as this one, that exist today. These cards a part of a larger collection donated by G. E. Copeland of Milwaukee in 1922.
Anderson, Lee
The History of American Indian Jewelry. http://www.americana.net/jewelry_history_article.html
Fabila, Alfonso
1945La Tribu Kickapoo de Coahuila. Biblioteca Enciclopedia Popular, no. 50. Secretaria de Educacion Popular, Mexico.
Verdant jungles and dusty villages await your arrival! Travel at your own pace as you stroll through the markets of Guatemala, to see how the Maya Indian villagers of the southern highlands visited the market for staple items such as beans, corn, chili peppers, rice, and bananas.
The Navajo rug collection is the largest museum-held collection of its type in the state of Wisconsin, comprising over 200 rugs representing all major types, ages, and styles. As early as the 1800s, the Navajo were recognized for their high quality of weaving by both neighboring American Indian groups and the Spanish. The changing designs of the rugs have been influenced by trade and later, tourism. Several examples of these rugs can be seen in the Southwest exhibit on the Second Floor.
