Adventures of an ALMOST Fifty-Year Old Backpacker: The National Museum of the American Indian

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of American Indian history. When I used to teach my U.S. History course, the first lesson was always about pre-Colombian cultures. The problem was that I placed them neatly in a narrative versus diving deeply into their belief systems. It was a start, but in retrospect, woefully inadequate. I’d also never visited the <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">National Museum of the American Indian</a> to see how it presented American Indian history, or any American Indian museums for that matter. It was my <a href="https://medium.com/@michaeldanshapiro/adventures-of-an-almost-fifty-year-old-backpacker-peru-c1d90f56251" rel="noopener">visit to Peru</a> that exposed this blind spot. I was in awe at how much time and space were devoted to pre-Colombian cultures. In the five museums I visited, and from our guides, these native cultures were never clumped together, but each given separate space to explain who they were, what they believed, and what drove those beliefs. I was blind and now I see, so it’s time to explore. <a href="https://medium.com/@michaeldanshapiro/adventures-of-an-almost-fifty-year-old-backpacker-the-national-museum-of-the-american-indian-7405f2af9e95">Read More</a>