Penobscots share Mall tribute Birch bark canoe from Indian Island displayed at museum opening

WASHINGTON – For those who happened to be on the National Mall on Tuesday to help mark the opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, there was a lot to look at.

But among the thousands of colorful American Indian costumes, members of the Penobscot Nation of Maine brought something else that caught people’s eyes, especially on dry land: a handmade, 70-pound birch bark canoe.

During a procession of tribes that celebrated the museum opening, Chief Barry Dana and others carried the canoe they said marked a return to forgotten traditions. For more than 12,000 years, he said, the tribe lived on the Penobscot River and traveled up and down it. But over time, the custom of making the canoes fell away.

“It would be one thing to say, well, we used to have birch bark canoes. And up until a couple of years ago, that’s what we would have said. Now we have birch bark canoes ’cause we built them,” he said. “To really know about it, you gotta do it.”

The canoe displayed Tuesday was one of two used in the sacred annual trip up the Penobscot from Indian Island to the base of Mount Katahdin, about 100 miles away. The event begins with a fire at the tribe’s graveyard on Indian Island.

The Smithsonian Institution, which oversees the museum, was impressed enough to ask the tribe if it would contribute the canoe to the new collection. The tribe has no items there – though numerous artifacts are archived with the Department of Interior in Washington and likely will become a part of future exhibitions, one tribal member said. Even so, Dana said, the tribe turned down the museum request for the canoe, because of the significance it holds.

“We would be extremely happy to oblige them” in the future, Dana said.

Though the day belonged to the opening of the new museum located at the foot of the Capitol, tribal member James Neptune said the Penobscots own their own small museum on the Indian Island reservation, which was converted from an old Bureau of Indian Affairs office. The curator of that museum, Neptune said it shouldn’t be overlooked. In fact, he said, tribal members were hoping to get some of the items now with the Department of Interior, so that their own younger generations can see the items without having to travel to Washington.

“To get a lot of these artifacts back would be very significant in helping us, helping our children to be proud of who they are,” he said. “Some things should come back to us.”