"I think all Indians will be proud of it," he said. "We're especially happy and proud the Pamunkey will be represented. I've been in close contact with the chiefs, and I haven't heard the first person say, 'Why them?' "
Some of the Pamunkey, however, pondered that very question when Smithsonian researchers first approached them four years ago with a proposal to feature them.
Pamunkey Chief William P. "Swift Water" Miles, right, greets Harry Sztenderowicz of Perkasie, Pa., and his daughter Sara, 4, as they prepare to fish the Pamunkey River on the reservation. Sztenderowicz, who married into the tribe, was down from Pennsylvania to visit his in-laws.
(Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
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Location, Location, Location
With space running out, planners are attempting to divert new memorials and monuments to sites far from the Mall.
_____D.C.'s Newest Museum_____
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History's New Look (The Washington Post, Sep 13, 2004)
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Where Myth Meets Reality (The Washington Post, Sep 14, 2004)
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Mall's Finite Space Holds Infinite Dreams (The Washington Post, Sep 15, 2004)
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Guiding Spirit (The Washington Post, Sep 15, 2004)
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"I was surprised they thought of us," said Cook, who served on a tribal committee to help with the museum planning. "We're so small. But there's a lot of history here."
The Pamunkey were once the most powerful tribe in the Powhatan Confederacy, an alliance of 32 tribes under the great Pamunkey chief Powhatan. Their treaties with the English crown date to 1646 and 1677. To this day, the tribe's chief, whose Indian name is Swift Water, dons his deerskin and headdress to present venison or turkey to the governor of Virginia every Thanksgiving. From the tribe's perspective, the ceremony continues its treaty with the state and solidifies its sovereignty.
What most intrigued the Smithsonian researchers was the way the Pamunkey maintain age-old traditions against the onslaught of modernity. Today, the reservation is a bedroom community, with most of its residents working at jobs an hour away in Richmond or Williamsburg. But many of their customs date back generations.
The tribe is governed by the chief and a tribal council of seven men. No women can run. Elections are held every four years. The men vote with kernels of corn in favor of a candidate, or butter beans signifying rejection. Disputes between neighbors are settled by the tribal council, with no appeal.
Joyce Krisvold, a retired nurse, runs the tribal pottery school, using the same designs as their ancestors. Jeff Brown, a construction worker, digs up the pottery clay on the banks of the Pamunkey River.
Smithsonian researchers made several trips to the reservation to make videos and take photos. The exhibit focuses on the river, which they photographed in every season as Pamunkey worked and played around its waters.
"They were interested in our lives," said Bob Gray, a maintenance superintendent for the Air National Guard who also worked on the museum committee. "They wanted to know how we are today, and how we got to be that way."
Adams, whose Upper Mattaponi tribe is just up the road from the Pamunkey Reservation, believes the museum's display of their lives will generate more interest in all Virginia's Indian tribes. The Jamestown 2007 commemoration of the colony's founding 400 years ago is also on the horizon. With Native Americans accustomed to having to fight to be heard, he said, it feels as if their time has finally come.
"For so many years we were hunkered down in a survival mode," he said. "For 250 years, they tried to obliterate our culture. Now they're building a monument to us. It's just amazing."
