Wampum as social practice

The return of thousands of Native American objects from museum collections to Native American communities was mandated by Public Law 101-601, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA, 104 STAT 3048, 1990). NAGPRA legally changed how Native American objects are currently interpreted. As a result of NAGPRA, some museum artifacts indicating a past presence are now reinterpreted as living objects of cultural patrimony to contemporary Native American cultures. The shift from past to present and from artifact to object of cultural patrimony suggest that objects like wampum are imbued with social practices.;My research investigated the perspectives of five Native members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy for the purpose of identifying how wampum is interpreted within their community. Through the methods of critical pedagogy, I analyzed traditional function of wampum, its use, and interpretations within the Mohawk and Onondaga communities of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Three themes arose from my study. The first theme identified wampum as an object attached to the social practices through which the Haudenosaunee Confederacy sustain their beliefs, values, and history. Secondly, wampum is considered a living object within the community and therefore one that can relate to its environment much like other living entities. The final discovery was the identification of new interpretations of how wampum is used to represent contemporary cultural identities.;The implications of my research are significant to my field of art education because art educators use objects to teach about Native American art and culture. The reclassification of wampum from artifacts to living objects of cultural patrimony suggests that current pedagogy should be revisited to assure that contemporary information about wampum and the people who constructed it are authentically represented in art classrooms.