Willow Roberts Powers, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian
The Friends of the American Philosophical Society Library
Lecture, Reception, and Book Signing
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Place: Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street
RSVP: sduffy@amphilsoc.org or 215-440-3400
Willow Roberts Powers, author of Navajo Trading: The End of an Era, is an anthropologist, currently Research Associate at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, NM. She is a longtime consultant on archival and cultural preservation projects for several tribes and Pueblos and continues to be involved with San Juan Pueblo. One of her interests is the politics and intersection of oral and written traditions.
Life for Indian people today is not only connected to tradition, but also highly modern. Ceremonies and beliefs continue with enormous vitality, while computer technology is absorbed with gusto. Tribal leaders take up traditional governance, as well as tackling the same problems all societies face, including education, jobs, law and order, and relations with neighbors. The preservation of culture does not necessarily involve a return to the past, but rather a blending of modernity with cultural difference. Perhaps this is one reason why the National Museum of the American Indian puzzles some visitors. This lecture will describe modernity, from the perspective of the American Southwest, as illustrated in activism, land issues, and art.