Uncovering and recovering identity: An historical ethnography of the cultural politics of museum building at Ak-Chin Him-Dak (Arizona)

This dissertation focuses attention on a Native American tribe, the Ak-Chin Indian Community, which opened a museum in an effort to "conserve" and "share" its cultural heritage with tribal members. In 1984, the Ak-Chin Indian Community, located approximately 35 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona, uncovered an archaeological site on their reservation that dated as far back as 300 A.D. The discovery activated an interest among community members in the tribe's history and cultural traditions, some of which had not been practiced for at least two generations. The Bureau of Reclamation, responsible for overseeing the archaeological excavation, agreed to repatriate the community's material culture on the condition that it be housed in "proper" facilities. The Ak-Chin Indian Community acceded to these conditions and opened Ak-Chin Him-Dak EcoMuseum and Archives in 1991.; This dissertation focuses on the Ak-Chin Indian Community's efforts to reclaim and revivify its traditions while simultaneously confronting contemporary conditions, including a diabetes epidemic that impacts nearly every member of the community, and unprecedented wealth from the establishment of the Harrah's Ak-Chin Casino Resort in 1994. The name the community selected for its museum is Him Dak, an O'odham word which translates to "way of life." The staff of Ak-Chin Him-Dak adheres to cultural protocols and assertions of cultural alterity in developing strategies to generate the community's interest in its past. The hope of those involved with Ak-Chin Him-Dak EcoMuseum and Archives is to revitalize Him Dak among the youth of the community. The museum staff, by collecting oral histories, teaching language and basket-making classes and mounting exhibitions, serves to symbolically represent components of Ak-Chin cultural identity. Yet, these expressions of identity, their production, re-production and adaptations are tightly bound to external political and economic forces; the creation of Ak-Chin Him-Dak EcoMuseum and Archives was itself the result of circumstances and pressures beyond the scope of the internal community. My overarching agenda in this dissertation is to understand how members of the Ak-Chin Indian Community "own" their history---understand it, claim it, and present it in ways that largely filter out the imprint of the dominant society.