Charles Fox
Special to ICTPHILADELPHIA — Jeremy Johnson delivered a short but gracious speech to the hundreds of people gathered at the Penn Museum’s Harrison Auditorium, but he felt a void, a need to collectively honor and bless the reason they were there.
The honor song that followed — in an Indigenous language rarely heard in Philadelphia — called out in the Lenape language to the spirit that had once enveloped the mid-Atlantic homelands and the past generations that preceded him.
It was an impromptu decision, a song that flowed from his heart and matched the emotions of the day, a reclamation of the land, filled with pride and defiance. But it also signaled there was something different about the museum exhibit they were about to unveil.
For not only were Native Americans part of the opening celebration at the Penn Museum, but Johnson and seven other Native consulting curators contributed beyond the auditorium walls to shape an exhibit depicting Native people in the present day.
“I had a sense of humility because the reason I was standing there was because of the resilience and strength of my grandmas and grandpas, and to be even able to sing that song was because of what they had done,” Johnson, the cultural education director for the Delaware Tribe of Indians, also known as Lenape, told ICT later.
“It was meant to honor what was going on there [at the museum] and the people there,” he said, “but it was really a recognition of those who came before me, who have set this path up and allowed us to keep continuing these ways.”
He was joined by other Native speakers, including three other consulting curators and contributing artists, as well as Tewa Dancers from the North, in November to initiate a weekend of activities for the opening of the Penn Museum’s new exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure.”
Given that Native Americans and museums have always had an uneasy relationship, it was unusual not only for the celebratory atmosphere but also for the Native participation.
The Tewa Dancers from the North from the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo (formerly San Juan Pueblo) in northern New Mexico performed at an opening day of a new exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” on Nov. 22, 2025, at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
But this exhibit is different. The new gallery is planned to be up for the next 10 years and follows the success of the museum’s previous exhibition, “Native American Voices: The People Here and Now.”
The museum and its curators hope the gallery will broaden the historical narrative that is presented in Philadelphia during the semiquincentennial celebration of the United States, and serve as a model for other museums struggling to incorporate Native voices in their corridors.
“We hope that some folks will come up here to the Penn Museum to check out the exhibit, maybe it will help put some context into what they’re celebrating as far as the 250th goes,” said Dr. Joseph Aguilar, a tribal historic preservation office board member for the San Ildefonso Pueblo and one of the consulting curators.
“Maybe it will give them some perspective like, ‘Hey, there’s this other history that also needs to be celebrated and acknowledged.’”
Ushering in the future
Native Americans rarely have gotten a say in what manner they were depicted in museums, especially in a state they were forced to leave in the 18th century. Museums often portray Indigenous people as primitive, defeated curiosities of the past rather than as a present-day populace with a rich cultural tradition.
The past actions of museums have been clouded by the unauthorized expropriation and display of sacred objects and human remains.
Barry King, Powhatan Renape Nation, visits the new exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience Resisting Erasure,” at the Penn Museum on opening day on Nov. 22, 2025 in Philadelphia. King, who once worked as an educator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was particularly interested in seeing the Delaware (Lenape) portions of the exhibit. The background images are of tribal homelands. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
The Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania has tried to distance itself from the past practices of museums with the new exhibit, which opened Nov. 22, 2025. It coincides with the upcoming 250th birthday of the United States in July as all Philadelphia museums and cultural institutions are gearing up for the expected influx of visitors for this year’s celebration.
The museum, a Philadelphia archaeology and anthropology institution founded in 1887, has been ahead of other museums with its recent practices. While other museums have pulled exhibits and closed galleries to comply with a change in regulations under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, known as NAGPRA, the Penn Museum has taken a different approach.
For the current exhibit, the museum tapped the eight Native consulting curators from different tribes to create a gallery that emphasizes the Native people and cultures that have thrived across the United States despite a historic agenda to erase their culture and language.
In addition to Johnson and Aguilar, the other consulting curators are RaeLyn Butler, secretary of culture and humanities, Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Beau Carroll, lead archaeologist, Tribal Historic Preservation Office, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians; Christopher Lewis, cultural specialist, Zuni Pueblo; Mary Weahkee, archaeologist, Santa Clara Pueblo; Dr. Nadia Sethi Alutiiq, art historian and museum consultant, Homer, Alaska; Darlene See, cultural heritage director, Huna Indian Association, Tribal House Management Kaach.adi Clan Tlingit.
The curators were able to shape the exhibit by helping determine its focus, what display items were appropriate, and ensure that Native people were depicted in the present day.
The exhibit hopes to “tell the past while ushering in the future,” Jill DiSanto, the museum’s public relations director, told ICT…
It marked a first for Johnson.
“Most of the work with museums in the past has been extractive of our cultural knowledge, or at worst, simply exploitative of our knowledge and our items,” Johnson said. “This is the first we collaborated on … to really get our story out there. Not just the historical presence, the pre-contact that is usually focused on in exhibits, but to really use the items here to tell the story of the people and to show that we are a living, thriving community still to this day.”
RaeLynn Butler, another of the Indigenous consulting curators and secretary of culture and humanities for Muscogee (Creek) Nation, agrees.
RaeLynn Butler, secretary of culture and humanities for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, stands by the exhibit she helped curate for the Penn Museum, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” which opened Nov. 22, 2025. She was one of eight Indigenous consulting curators who helped shape the exhibit. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
“There’s been too much emphasis on objects and not enough on the culture and people,” Butler told ICT. “The difference here is to bring the ancient up to modern times. We want people to know there are 574 tribes in the United States…and that we are still here today. I think that’s always the message. and I think that this exhibit is a perfect example of including tribal nations in the telling of the history of these items and personal belongings.”
She noted in an earlier press conference, “We’re living, grieving, strong cultures, and that’s what is so exciting about these exhibits, to see people’s faces and to hear their voices and the language. That helps people when they walk away to understand these are living communities of people and that’s an important message.”
NAGPRA changes
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was passed by Congress in 1990 to establish protocols for the return of human remains and other objects to their specific tribes.
In January 2024, the federal regulations were strengthened with new rules requiring museums and government agencies to obtain permission from Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations before displaying sacred and funerary objects.
“Among the updates we are implementing are critical steps to strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process,” then-Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Laguna Pueblo, said at the time. “Finalizing these changes is an important part of laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.”
The changes left some museums scrambling to comply. The Field Museum in Chicago and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University were forced to remove objects or cover displays, while the American Museum of Natural History in New York City closed its Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains Halls.
The Penn Museum had anticipated the new NAGPRA regulations, however, and had been acting accordingly before planning the new exhibit, officials said.
“I think many of those displays were really old and outdated, so they may have included items such as funerary objects or sensitive items that today tribes would not agree or want to have on display,” said Dr. Lucy Fowler Williams, the Penn Museum’s co-curator of the Native North American Gallery and associate curator-in-charge. “We were already tuned into what is sensitive for tribes and what would be appropriate to show… It’s not to say we’ve got it all perfect or anything, but we’ve just been working in this mode for a long time.”
An empty case at the entrance to a new exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia represents artifacts and other items that have been repatriated back to tribes or deemed inappropriate to display. . The museum brought in eight Native consulting curators to help develop the latest exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” which opened Nov. 22, 2025. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
The Native co-curators worked with the Penn Museum to decide which items were appropriate for display and which were not for public viewing. An empty case at the start of the gallery symbolically represents those items in the museum’s collection that were deemed to have been obtained inappropriately or were considered inappropriate for display. Many of those items have been repatriated back to their tribes.
“The inclusion of an empty display case is a deliberate intervention — not an act of censorship,” Aguilar said in a museum press release.
“It serves as a thoughtful prompt for visitors to reflect on the fraught relationship between museums and Indigenous communities,” he said. “In its absence, the object becomes an act of Indigenous sovereignty.”
Lucy Fowler Williams, left, associate curator and senior keeper of American collections at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, stands with Megan Kassabaum, Penn Anthropology professor and co-curator, at a new exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” which opened Nov. 22, 2025. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
Williams said the collaboration built positive relationships between the museum and tribes.
“I think that what is so important about the NAGPRA law is, they [ tribes] do have a great and a vested interest in the materials that we house,” Williams said. “And they have the right now to reclaim some of those items through repatriation. But this also sets up building positive relationships and moving forward together, to work together to find common ground and work together on projects that we both know are important to help regain those histories that the museum is interested in, and the communities are even more interested in.
“It’s taken us a long time to figure out that you can do it better together.”
‘More than fluff’
The gallery, which features approximately 260 historic and contemporary items, is arranged to represent the four corners of the country: the Delaware (Lenape) in the Northeast, the Eastern Band of Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) in the Southeast, the Pueblo in the Southwest, and the Tlingit and Alutiiq people of Alaska in the Northwest.
Quay Hosey, Delaware (Lenape), stands beside a tàkhwèmpës (blouse), hémpsi tëpèthun (wrap-around skirt) and kaduna (leggings) she created specifically for a new exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. She incorporates the traditional elements of her ancestors with the styles inspired by neighboring tribes after they were forcibly moved west.The exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” opened Nov. 22, 2025, with the help of eight Native consulting curators and contributing artists. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
The exhibit includes a floral beadwork collar from the Lenape; a Tlingit Naaxein (Chilkay blanket) ceremonial robe; a contemporary glass sculpture, “Emerging from Raven,” by Tlingit artist Preston Singletary; a San Juan Pueblo robe created by Ramoncita Sandoval in 2001; Cherokee stickball equipment and rag dolls, and a pot ring and ring basket woven from yucca grass by Native consulting curator Christopher Lewis, a cultural specialist with the Zuni Pueblo. Lewis studied ancient baskets, textiles, wood, and feather work in the Penn Museum and other museums to create modern items using ancient techniques.
The words of Delaware artist Holly Wilson that accompany her sculpture, “I’m More than Fluff,” summarize the objective of the exhibit.
Delaware (Lenape) artist Holly Wilson’s sculpture, “I’m More than Fluff,” is among the items on display at a new exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. The exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” opened Nov. 22, 2025. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
“I am more than the view that my people are frozen in time, lost to a romanticized ideal of who Native Americans were, we are more, and we are still here,” according to an informational sign posted at the exhibit. “I am not this fluff: I am here: I am loud and larger than life.”
Focusing on the stories of the people first, Wilson told ICT, “tells a different story and looks at things in a different way.”
“So much of the time it’s the history of the objects and there’s nothing connecting them to the people,” she said. “So, it’s been very emotional and powerful.”
In addition to historic items and works commissioned by contemporary artists, the gallery also features interactive stations focusing on language, stories and artistic techniques, with displays about traditions, cultural items, and the hardships caused by European contact.
Oklahoma road trip
In July, four members of the Penn Museum staff, including Williams and Penn Anthropology professor Dr. Megan Kassabaum, co-curator of the exhibit, traveled to Oklahoma to spend three days with members of the Delaware Tribe.
They brought with them four items: a floral Lenape beaded collar, a woman’s traditional red blouse, a dance staff, and an ancestral stone atlatl weight, which is a decorative stone used as a counterweight on a spear.
This floral beadwork collar from the Lenape, circa 1850-1900, is among more than 250 cultural items on display in a new exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia from eight tribes across the country. The exhibit, “Native North America Gallery: Rooted in Resilience, Resisting Erasure,” opened Nov. 22, 2025. Credit: Charles Fox/Special to ICT
“We made two presentations to the tribal community members, during which time they were all invited to look closely, study, and handle the items made by their ancestors,” Williams said. “From my perspective, it was incredibly moving and important for them to see these items and to see us making the effort to go there to meet them. We hope to do more of this kind of work to try to create opportunities that strengthen the communities and the next generation, and to continue to build meaningful relationships with tribes when possible.”
Johnson, the Delaware Tribe’s cultural education director, said the items connected the past and present.
“People got to experience it and touch it and examine it, so it really went against a lot of the curatorial practices,” Johnson said. “In the two hours that we were able to spend with this beaded collar, we learned more in that time than anyone else has learned with it being behind glass for the last 100 years.”
Johnson continued, “These items have a life, and they aren’t meant to just be stuck in time. They’re really meant to be cared for and utilized wit
