Museum Indians

In native american museums gorgeous Indian traditional outfits, instrument, and food are being showcased, but the gorgeous tribes do not exist anymore. Their cultures were taken endlessly by the people who built the museums. In the story “Museum Indians” and the poem “evolution”, Susan Power and Sherman Alexie wrote about the tragedy of Native American culture and the sorrowness inside the remaining Indians by using negative connotation and figurative language . The story Museum Indians was written from an Indian girl’s point of view, the author used a lot of connotations and figurative languages. The connotations and figurative languages indicated the mother and the little girl’s feeling towards Indian culture and how it got taken away. The
They practice indian traditions. But they are technically not real indians any more. They miss being an indian. Like the mother in Museum Indians. In the story Museum Indians. The little girl thought that “ The clothed figures are disconcerting because they have no heads. [she] thinks of them as dead Indians”[3 Power].This is a simile because it’s comparing dead Indians to clothed figures without heads. The author is trying to express the same thing as “ Their skeletons falling endlessly from the skin” in “Evolution”. Both indicating that Indian culture still exist,but has losted its’ center. Different from the “Museum Indian”, the poem “Evolution” was written from a third person point of view. But it was also about the tragedy of the destruction of Native American culture. This poem is about how settlers took indian culture away, little by little, endlessly. The poem starts off with Buffalo Bills opening a pawn shop.The indians “ran into the pawn shop with jewelry, television sets, VCR and a full-length beaded buckskin outfit”[5 Alexie]. The jewelry, television sets, VCR, and full-length beaded buckskin outfit represents what the Indians have in the beginning. These represent the land that Native Americans owned, but got taken away by the US government later
They took away their identity, their culture, everything they have. Their body parts symbolize spiritual property American Indians owned. “The indians pawn their hands, saving the thumbs for last”［9 Alexie]. Thumb is the most important finger of all. People are not able to complete many tasks if they don’t have their thumbs. But thumbs need other fingers’ supports too. It can’t work by itself. Some indians tribes resist the assimilation, after the government divided their land and send their children to Native American boarding school. But other tribes accept the assimilation. The American Indian community is slowly decaying. The remaining thought as long as they have the spirit, they could fight back someday. But without the supports, they are too weak to do that. After all those years, it’s impossible for native american tribes to reform again. Many factors of american indian culture diminished with time. Many people whose ancestors are american indians assimilated with the domain culture. Now native americans only exist in the past, in the museum. Ironically, those museums were built by people who lead them to genocide. No matter what they do in the future, they could not deny their destruction to Native American