OMG! (Oh my gosh!) I’ve never been to Washington D.C in my life. The National Museum of the American Indian opened on September 21, 2004. There were over 450 tribes and more than 750,000 people from all over the United States and the world for the new opening. I’m glad I was able to attend this historical event.

I wanted to go to Washington D.C. because the opening of this museum was a once in a lifetime experience, so I looked up the website; it looked really nice and had a lot to see. So I was pretty happy to go. The reason why I was so happy to go is because I’ve never been to a native museum in my life. Plus there was going to be lots of natives from all over the Untied States. When I got to my hotel I saw lots natives, in fact, my hotel was nothing but natives.

There was a procession with over 450 tribes registered to march down the streets of Washington D.C. When I got to the procession there was lots of natives there in different regalia on that I’ve never seen before. It was beautiful! The procession started at 7:00 AM and got over about 1:00 PM. During the procession when the Elwha Klallam people where marching down the streets of Washington D.C., we represented our tribe by carrying our Tribal flag and singing our culture songs. When we where marching, people were on the side lines cheering us on and taking pictures and video taping us. After the procession was done with the marching there was a lot going on. There were tribes performing and people talking to the crowd about all different types of things. A guy brought an eagle through the crowd and all the natives were so happy. I enjoyed watching the Eskimos and Klinket perform for us.

The National Museum of the American Indian is a four-story building. The building is shaped roundish because the natives that lived before us always did things round since they believed that when things were round it was complete or holy. The outsides of the museum are rocks that the museum got from different tribes from all over the world. On the inside there’s so much to see. The first floor is a gift shop. Inside the gift shop is artwork for sale. There’s also a café that serves foods from the different areas that native tribes lived in. I tried foods from the Great Plains. I had Buffalo meat, which was a little spicy, and fry bread. It was good. There was food from the Northern Woodlands, South America, Meso-America, Great Plains, and the Northern Coast. There were a couple of display cases from Alaskan Tribes. There also were bas-relief sculptures- meaning sculptures that come out of the wall. The second floor had Pendleton blankets, toys for kids and souvenirs. The third floor was a big room with lots of sculptures of chiefs. The other room they have was a big room with different tribes that tell about their culture, their tribe, and what they used to survive in the world. Also there was a small theater that had three different screens that we could watch videos on. There were two regular screens and a rock that we could watch it on. The last floor, there was two big display cases. One had nothing but different types of arrowheads, and one that every floor had, was four big display cases that showed everyone what they used and what they use to wear and what helped them survive in the world.

I’m glad I was able to attend this historical event. The National Museum of the American Indian is a good museum. I recommend that anyone who loves art to go to this museum. This was a once in a lifetime event for me and I’m sure anyone who goes to this museum will be amazed. All people from all over the world would enjoy this museum because it has things from all over the world.

by Melaine W.