About
Permanent displays represent finely crafted items by the Delaware, Montagnais, and Inuit peoples. These include carved ivory, painted wooden masks, musical instruments, fishing and hunting implements, and clothing and bags from caribou and seal skin. On rotating view are substantial collections including late-19th-century Plains textiles with decorative quillwork and beadwork; southwest terracotta pottery from the Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni peoples; Montagnais birchbark baskets; Plains headdresses, jackets, dresses, and shoes; and an important early (pre-1850) pictorial Crow or Mandan buffalo robe.
The Reading Public Museum proudly accepts the profound responsibility of respectfully and sensitively caring for objects created and used by Indigenous people of the Americas, whose lands we inhabit and whose descendants live in our communities.
Since the 1990s, The Museum has been in full compliance and support of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act), and has repatriated culturally significant materials and human remains to their rightful owners in descendent communities. Recent changes to the NAGPRA law encourage institutions to only display human remains, associated funerary objects, unassociated funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and sacred objects with express permission from the descendent communities of artists and artisans who created and used the materials.
Out of deep respect for the wishes of the Indigenous people whose objects fill this gallery, and to fully comply with the evolving recommendations of NAGPRA, we have removed several objects from display while we dialogue and collaborate with descendent communities to inform our displays and create a narrative that is both meaningful and educational.