New exhibit at Green Bay's Neville Museum revives Oneida traditional arts
GREEN BAY – The intricate raised beadwork of the Oneida culture is famous throughout the world, but a new and temporary exhibit at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay highlights some of the other Oneida artforms that are equally deserving of attention.
More than 100 creations in pottery, basketry and silversmithing from contemporary Oneida artists are displayed alongside historic artifacts in the exhibit “Reviving Traditional Arts of the Oneida,” which runs through June 13.
A theme of the exhibit can be expressed in the Oneida language as Tetwátlatstá, pronounced day-dwatlats-staa, and is translated as "We are going over it again."
For example, a basket that is more than 100 years old, but still very stable and functional, is displayed in a case near a basket by artist Richard Gonzalez that is a modern-day tribute to his favorite football team, the Green Bay Packers.
His piece, made of colored hemp, sea grass and mule deer antler, incorporates the team's colors. The Oneida Nation is a major sponsor of the Packers.
Another of Gonzalez’s creations is called Bounty of the Three Sisters.
In a video in the exhibit he explains that sachems are important men in Oneida culture who can traditionally be distinguished by the antlers they wore as part of a headdress, but these leaders were chosen by the clan mothers.
So, his piece pays homage to leaders of both genders with prominently displayed deer antlers and a basket design featuring the Three Sisters, which refers to the three staples of agricultural Native American food, corn, beans and squash.
Baskets were originally made by the Oneida, and all people of the Haudenosaunee culture, for utilitarian purposes, such as transporting food.
The Haudenosaunee "People of the Longhouse," or Iroquois, are tribal nations that share similar culture and language. The Iroquois Confederacy is an alliance of six of these tribes, including Oneida and Mohawk.
As Haudenosaunee basket designs became more intricate they were sold to tourists in the 1800s throughout the state of New York, where the Oneida lived before many were forced to move to Wisconsin.
The tradition is kept alive today through the work of artists such as Gonzalez, and also through the Oneida Basket Guild, or Twatashe’nutslu:níhe, which translates to “we all make baskets” and is pronounced dwa-da-say-noot-sloo-nee-hay.
The first step in the process of basket making is to find a suitable tree, traditionally black ash. But these trees are becoming more difficult to find because of the emerald ash borer infestation. Some basket weavers are in search of substitute materials.
In the silversmithing section, a featured piece is a silver wolf created by 13-year-old Daniel Clay Stevens.
“This art means a lot to me because I know my ancestors did metal work,” he said in a statement about the piece. “I did the silver wolf because I am Wolf Clan. Silver is a material that stands for protection.”
Stevens also created a sea turtle out of copper that’s on display. The turtle plays an important part of the Haudenosaunee creation story. In fact, North America is called Turtle Island by many Native American cultures.
In the pottery section, one display case has fragments from a 500-year-old piece that was found in Door County in the 1990s.
Kevin Cullen, deputy director of the museum and co-curator of the exhibit, said it is unknown how the piece made it to Door County centuries before many Oneida people permanently moved to Wisconsin.
And while the piece is Haudenosaunee, it is not Oneida, but likely Mohawk, he said.
Cullen said the discovery suggests a large Great Lakes trading network that existed prior to contact with Europeans.
The display is near pieces created by contemporary artist Rose Kerstetter and her apprentice Jennifer Stevens.
They and other artists talk about their work in a video in the exhibit, as well as show how pottery can be traditionally made over an open fire. The clay pots are left near the fire for up to eight hours to remove moisture. The artist knows it’s ready when a tap on it has a certain pinging sound.
Kerstetter said her favorite part is designing the collar, to top rim, of the containers. And her designs had been traditional in nature when she started the craft unbeknownst to her.
“I’ve been using Oneida designs on the collars," said Kerstetter, who’s in her 90s. "I didn’t know it was an Oneida design until later, but I kept on using it because I loved it. All I can say about that is that genes must have memories.”
The exhibit is a collaboration between the Neville Museum, the Oneida Nation Museum and the Oneida Nation Arts Program, which aims to revitalize traditional art forms.
Frank Vaisvilas is a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. He can be reached at 920-228-0437 or firstname.lastname@example.org, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.