Native American

Pernell Richardson donned a porcupine headdress, carried a cluster of feathers on his back and reflected on the centuries-old tradition he was about to kick and stomp his way through. Richardson, 43, had just arrived at Patterson Park yesterday to dance in the Baltimore Native American Festival and Powwow, but also wanted to make an impression on his 14-year-old son, Will. "This is a way for me to pass this along to him," said Richardson, a Virginia resident, as his son put on a bright yellow and orange vest in preparation for his own dance.

The Liriodendron Foundation is planning to open a Maryland history museum showcasing artifacts such as tools and animal skulls from American Indian culture dating from 1500 B.C. to 500 B.C. The Chesapeake Culture B.C. Museum - which stands for before the Colonies - is scheduled to open next year and will be located in a 14-by-28-foot restored icehouse at the historic Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air. The foundation is working with Dan Coates, an Army...

Souls of Indians find expression in diverse ways While I applaud Lisa Goldberg's attempt to correct stereotypes about American Indians, her article "Powwow rhythms unite native souls" (July 18) leaves many more intact. In the 1970s, the pan-Indian movement was created in large part out of the American Indian Movement's attempts to unite the Native diaspora in fighting for our sovereignty and civil rights. Because many of our traditions were purposefully eradicated by the U.S. government, Plains culture came to infuse much of the "Red Power" movement and much of what one sees at a powwow today.

Beneath a bluff by the Rhode River, oyster shells are falling out of the bank, which is eroding so readily that several big trees have toppled into the water. Atop the sandy bluff, archaeologists are digging holes, and the ones close to the water contain fragments of shells and pottery at least 1,000 years old. "Oysters don't have legs, so somebody brought them up here and ate them," said Al Luckenbach, Anne Arundel County's chief archaeologist. Another archaeological site has been discovered in the Rhode River area south of Annapolis, this one at the YMCA's sprawling Camp Letts in Edgewater.

It was still an hour before the drums would start beating a rhythm, before the men and women would gather in a circle, their voices raised in the haunting chants of traditional Native American music. William Warwick sat in a chair in the sweltering heat of a barn at the Howard County Fairgrounds with a feather bustle in his lap. The 25-year-old Baltimorean was in his street duds and listening to the music of OutKast and Evanescence, but within moments he would transform himself, putting on colorful garb more fitting of his Lumbee-Cheraw Indian ancestry and preparing for the dancing to come.

While others fanned away the smoke as the fire was lit at the second Four Bay Winds Native American Gathering, Mary White beckoned the spirit of her great- great-grandfather, who was of the Cherokee nation, to come to her. Although the wind blew ferociously, the fire at the center of the arena didn't die. Some there said the ancestors kept it burning. Nearly 800 people gathered in the grassy field behind the Susquehanna Museum of Havre de Grace at the Lock House to experience the spirit of Native American culture yesterday.

While others fanned away the smoke as the fire was lit at the second Four Bay Winds Native American Gathering, Mary White beckoned the spirit of her great- great-grandfather, who was of the Cherokee nation, to come to her. Although the wind blew ferociously, the fire at the center of the arena didn't die. Some there said the ancestors kept it burning. Nearly 800 people gathered in the grassy field behind the Susquehanna Museum of Havre de Grace at the Lock House to experience the spirit of Native American culture yesterday.

WASHINGTON - A rust-red Navajo blanket with lightning-slash black and white stripes created by a Native American weaver in the first half of the 19th century. A striking whalebone sculpture of a Spirit Drummer by a contemporary Inuit carver. A 500-year-old Mesoamerican drinking cup emblazoned with human hearts, skulls, bones and shields that symbolically represent the dark rituals of sacrifice and war. These and other strange and beautiful artworks are a few of the more than 800,000 objects - sculpture, painting, ceramics, tools, jewelry and textiles - in the collection of the National Museum of the American Indian, which opens today on the Mall in Washington.

The National Museum of the American Indian, whose opening this week is expected to draw the largest number of Indians ever to visit the nation's capital, was positioned to face the rising sun, in accordance with Native American traditions. The museum also faces the U.S. Capitol, which is not in accordance with anything at all. In that old building, less than a block away, as recently as the 1950s - some might argue even later - laws were still being passed to strip Indians of their land and suppress their culture, the same culture that the new, government-supported museum has been built to preserve.

Two Native American sisters collected rocks and yucca leaves from the mountains near their home in New Mexico. They hiked three miles to a secret mesa to mine for clay and then gathered firing materials. A few weeks ago, they shipped everything to Westminster for a class they were teaching in the ancient art of pottery making. Common Ground on the Hill brought Delores Lewis Garcia and Emma Lewis Mitchell, two experts in the tradition of Acoma pottery, to McDaniel College last week to lead a workshop on their craft.