Cultures & Communities

Furniture, cooking wares, clothing, works of art, and many other kinds of artifacts are part of what knit people into communities and cultures. The Museum’s collections feature artifacts from European Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, African Americans, Gypsies, Jews, and Christians, both Catholics and Protestants. The objects range from ceramic face jugs made by enslaved African Americans in South Carolina to graduation robes and wedding gowns. The holdings also include artifacts associated with education, such as teaching equipment, textbooks, and two complete schoolrooms. Uniforms, insignia, and other objects represent a wide variety of civic and voluntary organizations, including youth and fraternal groups, scouting, police forces, and firefighters.

"Belsnickel" figure made of painted wood. Figure is dressed in a long brown coat with ermine, with hemline, cuffs, and border of hood lined in red, and black boots. The figure's eyes, cheeks, and wrinkles are clearly defined by painting and carving.
Description (Brief)
"Belsnickel" figure made of painted wood. Figure is dressed in a long brown coat with ermine, with hemline, cuffs, and border of hood lined in red, and black boots. The figure's eyes, cheeks, and wrinkles are clearly defined by painting and carving. White beard is also carved and painted. The left arm is bent at elbow, clenched flat holding a whip, and a pack on back. Possibly made in Pennsylvania.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
19th century
ID Number
CL.65.1150
catalog number
65.1150
collector/donor number
T-39
accession number
261195
This European Baroque-style polychromed ornamental fragment with floral, scroll and tassle motifs carved out of locally grown cedar was originally part of the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Zuni (part of present-day New Mexico).
Description
This European Baroque-style polychromed ornamental fragment with floral, scroll and tassle motifs carved out of locally grown cedar was originally part of the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Zuni (part of present-day New Mexico). It was part of the renovated decoration installed in the mission church c. 1778-1779, and one of several fragments collected for the U.S. National Museum's Bureau of Ethnology by James Stevenson and Frank Hamilton Cushing without permission from the community they were studying. On November 21, 1879, in a report addressed to J. C. Pilling, Chief Clerk of the Bureau, Stevenson reported: "I secured from the Old Church of Zuni two large images 4 ft. highÂ…and the center piece of the altarÂ…Got them in the dead of night." In the annual report of the Bureau published in 1896, Cushing reported: "A few years since, a party of Americans who accompanied me to Zuni desecrated the beautiful antique shrine of the church, carrying away 'Our Lady of Guadalupe of the Sacred Heart,' the guardian angels, and some of the bas-reliefs attached to the frame of the altar. When this was discovered by the Indians, consternation seized the whole tribe; council after council was held, at which I was alternately berated (because people who had come there with me had thus 'plundered their fathers' house'), and entreated to plead with 'Washintons' to have these 'precious saints and sacred masks of their fathers' returned to them."
Date made
1775-1799
associated dates
1966 10 27 / 1966 10 27
1881 01 06 / 1881 01 06, 1965 00 00 / 1965 00 00
originator
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
user
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church
ID Number
CL.041914
accession number
9899
catalog number
41914

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