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Virtual Exhibits

When Nevada tribal leaders met with newly elected Governor Kenny Guinn in January 1999, he solicited their concerns regarding state government.  High on their list was objection to the Nevada State Museum’s scientific studies of the 9400-year-old Sprit Cave human remains.  The governor’s interest was sincere, and in May 1999, he appointed a new director, Dale Erquiaga, to head the Department of Cultural Affairs, a cabinet-level position overseeing all museums and other cultural agencies.  One of the director’s first actions was canceling the museum’s planned exhibition featuring “Spirit Cave Man” and halting museum-initiated radiocarbon and DNA analysis of human remains.

In July 1999, the department director met with the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribal Council, and he acknowledged problems between the museum and tribes.  He then proposed a joint exhibition honoring the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe at the state museum, in lieu of the Spirit Cave exhibit, as a means of bringing the museum and tribe together for mutual public benefit. The Fallon tribe subsequently accepted the director’s offer, but requested that the exhibit include all tribes. The tribal chairman’s acceptance letter was signed, “Under One Sky, Alvin Moyle, Chairman.” The director immediately chose the exhibition title from that farewell. 

Tribal co-curators began their participation in Under One Sky with a great deal of trepidation, but this was overshadowed by their goal of providing visitors with Native American perspectives on their own culture.  Likewise, the museum was committed to including meaningful participation by Native American co-curators. 

Fallon Tribe co-curators assumed the lead in recruiting participants from other Native American groups.  Their support was also instrumental in securing keystone funding from the E.L. Wiegand foundation.  Native American co-curator contributions were substantive.  Co-curators also encouraged elders to participate in the exhibition, especially for the audio and video presentations produced by the University of Nevada, Oral History Program.  The exhibition attempts to present multiple perspectives including Native American views that contrast with those offered by the museum.  Many of these divergent viewpoints are presented as videos, some in tribal languages with English subtitles.

The exhibition opened in June 2002, with a large turnout by tribal members and tribal leaders.  Measures of success include increased visitation by tribal members, especially school groups and senior centers.  Ownership is demonstrated by requests for inclusion in the exhibition from other tribal groups and object donations and loans to the museum by tribal members and tribes.  Tribes have also contacted the museum with requests for museum participation in Native American events.  Although originally slated to run until December 2004, the exhibit will now remain as the nucleus of our long-term exhibition.

On going Under One Sky art exhibitions and other special events help us maintain contact with tribes. Additionally, displays will change more regularly than in the past, which also provides more opportunities to work with tribes and tribal members.  The museum and tribes are working more closely now than in the recent past, and friendships have developed.  But, as Donna Cossette, Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, aptly expresses in interviews, “We respectfully agree to disagree with one another’s views.”

The Under One Sky Web site was created in 2004 by Ms. Kara Geiger as part of her master’s degree project in anthropology from the University of Nevada-Reno.