It has been over a decade since we visited the Heard Museum here in Phoenix. The contents here started with the Heards’ collection of Indian arts. The collections are extensive and informative. We definitely need to return to take more of the tours.
Click any photo to enlarge it and start a slideshow:
-
- We were tour guides for one of our grandsons and his wife.
-
- Several guided tours are offered. Our first was the exhibit on Indian Boarding Schools. Students were abducted from their parents on the reservation and stripped of everyting assiciated with their old lives: clothing, hair, name, and language.
-
- This fence represents the Southwest and its original peoples.
-
- More about the fence.
-
- On the museum grounds is the American Indian Veterans National Memorial. Twenty percent or more of adult Indian men served in World War One. An early form of code talking was used; it was more famously used in World War 2 by the Navajo Code Talkers.
-
- We stopped by the state capitol on the way home. Across the street in the plaza are these monuments: Father Kino, a Navajo Code Talker, and a tribute to the USS Arizona, sunk at Pearl Harbor.
-
- This representation of a Navajo Code Talker is similar to one at Window Rock, the Navajo Capital. (See https://carlhenning.com/a-photo-study-of-nothing/
The gift shop is called The Museum Store with good reason; it’s not really a conventional gift shop It is filled with collectible-quality Indian pottery, jewelry, and blankets ( I liked the 5×8 Navajo blanket for $8,000, but…)