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Starting with Adolph Meinecke's contributions at the turn of the century and ending most recently with Dr. Nancy Oestreich Lurie's additions in the 1980s and several additions in the 1990s, MPM's Sami collection represents a large span in the fascinating history of Sami culture.

Numbering just about one hundred pieces, MPM's is the only sizeable collection in North America at this time, and perhaps the only large Sami collection outside of Europe at all.

One of the food staples particularly enjoyed by the Ojibwe and Menominee was wild rice. 

Wild rice is not a true rice, but rather a cereal grass -- Zizania aquatica -- which grows in shallow lakes and streams. It ripens in late summer, usually from the middle of August to early September. Native people in the Great Lakes boiled rice and ate it with corn, beans, or squash. Meat, a small amount of grease, or maple sugar was often added for seasoning. As a treat, it was occasionally parched like popcorn.

Introduction

The Old Copper Complex, also known as the Old Copper Culture, refers to the items made by early inhabitants of the Great Lakes region during a period that spans several thousand years and covers several thousand square miles. The most conclusive evidence suggests that native copper was utilized to produce a wide variety of tools beginning in the Middle Archaic period circa 4,000 BC. The vast majority of this evidence comes from dense concentrations of Old Copper finds in eastern Wisconsin.

Cosmic Curiosities

“Never have I beheld any spectacle which…so forcibly taught the lesson of humility to man as a total eclipse of the Sun.”
~ James Fennimore Cooper, 19th century American writer

Last Thoughts before the Big American Eclipse

Aztalan is characteristic of other known Middle Mississippian societies, especially Cahokia, but archaeologists don't know exactly why the Mississippians came to what is now known as Wisconsin. One hypothesis is that Aztalan served as a northern outpost in an attempt to gain political and ideological control of this region. Another hypothesis is that the Mississippians came to expand trade with local Late Woodland groups.