Talk:Museum of Indigenous People

Moving Page and Redirecting “Smoki Museum”
The historical museum’s name change is a significant event dissociating it from a controversial past and under new management. February 1st, 2022 is the proposed move date for this article.
 * Luxnir (talk) 01:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Article Revision Removal 01/27/22
The Smoki People was never referred to the Smoki Tribe as stated in-quotes in the article. Reading the sources the original editor cited show clearly that it was simply an willful and arbitrary change made by that section’s writer. If you don’t care to read the cited references, the “Smoki People” was a corporation listed as a fraternal and historical society according to the Arizona Department of State, Division of Corporations, that dissolved in 1991 when the non-profit Smoki Museum, Inc. was created. Every academic reference to the organization has been the “Smoki People” (including the Smithsonian’s collection that is all about the Smoki in Washington, D.C. shown here https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/archives/components/sova-nmai-ac-015-ref370), it’s registered corporate and stage name (as shown here, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41696296). Not even the members themselves ever referred to the group as the “Smoki Tribe” in any published works attributed to them. The importance of the accuracy of a name that is critical to the Museums history is, needless to say, critical to the historical section of the article. Not to mention that there’s a huge between the word “tribe” and Native American civil rights efforts as a civilized and developed federally recognized sovereignty. The use of the word is inherently derogatory and associated with savagery or ignorance, in the context of native culture. This consideration would mean use of Smoki Tribe could very well be an insult understood by actual natives to be indicative of negative associations. Whether or not the Smoki preserved the practices of a culture that was federally criminalized is up to interpretation but the use of Tribe may bias that to the negative amongst the native community. For the sake of balance as well, it should simply be whatever their actual name was and not that needless variation that was never actually used.

The inclusion of additional information regarding the social pushback to the Smoki was to include the outrage at a national level (leading to their collection in the Smithsonian) and the local Prescott, Arizona, Yavapai-Apache Nation to the Hopi Nation that was previously listed as the sole offended party. This was all sourced from the same references already listed. Read the sources.

Also, the revision included updated names of the director, curator, and president. Why was this removed?

All the box info and other changes were either to sourced from the museum website which is: https://www.museumofindigenouspeople.org/.

All removals were either to neutralize or remove sensationalist adjectives.


 * Luxnir (talk) 02:06, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Twsabin in case you’re not watching for some reason. Luxnir (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I couldn't find the source for the director etc.—yes, I shouldn't have reverted that portion of your edit, apologies. Your edit has many other components apart from the Smoki Tribe/People change and the infobox information. I couldn't attest that any of rewordings and additions follow the sources more closely than the existing text. I was just finishing up for today, and can't reply more substantively ATM. Going to need a day or so to follow up on the main issue which is whether the actual name was Smoki Tribe, Smoki People or both in some sense. twsabin 02:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@[[User:Twsabin]   No worries, it’s fairly convoluted because there are a couple of lines in the travel guide source that read “Smoki tribe” but of course a travel guide is not a very credible source for historical assertions. Every other academic source (such as those above) “Smoki People” is there as well. In the context of the article, however, I propose that we shouldn’t use that one author’s stylization of the name and only their stylization of the name when in every other credible source as well as according to the organization itself the Smoki People organization has never used or officially referred to as “Smoki Tribe”. The Smithsonian has a pretty good further reads list on their history in general, but I felt adding the references to the Arty was needless when the ones there covered it for the most part. As for the director and staff info it’s on their site here at this page: https://www.museumofindigenouspeople.org/meet-our-team-and-board The director has minor publications and political appointments at the municipal government level but nothing that has warranted an article yet. I’m keeping an eye on that for the future.

With regard to the laundry list of minor edits, as listed in the note, the majority were to maintain considering the obvious lack of encyclopedic tone when referring to the Smoki, three or four grammar/concision edits, Museum operation and community service info, proper use of terminology and clarification of involved parties in the historical section (I guess I could have simply removed those portions altogether), and the rest were to keep out the subjective “impressive” and other needless qualifiers or conclusory statements. Any info that was added otherwise was collected from Yavapai Apache history, Smoki people history references listed in the Arty and their respective references, plus the museum website and official social media accounts linked therein (about exhibits and rotations, events, fesitvals, staff ethnic composition in face of the controversy, etc). Luxnir (talk) 03:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I have done some research and I believe that it's probably fine to change from "tribe" to "people", but I also have an impression, when looking at some mentions in google searches and their dates, that the actual, "official" name of the group was "Smoki Tribe" at the time of it's founding. However I don't have an unequivocal source for this. I'll proceed to comment on other edits, which I find not to be so minor:"The museum often sponsors or conducts festivals and educational programs that promote the restoration and public recognition of Native American culture and political freedoms that are currently or have historically been suppressed by law and custom within the United States. Indigenous Americans comprise the majority of the permanent museum staff and board of trustees." You added the cited part to the lead. It comprises information that isn't also included in the body, and (therefore also) is not sourced. Most of this text would be a good addition but it would need to be added to the body first, to be sourced, and only then to be summarized in the lead; per MOS:LEAD. "The museum evolved from the activities of a fraternal group of caucasian Arizona residents who enacted ceremonial dances of the southwestern indigenous peoples for use in community parades and the world’s oldest rodeo, which was not appreciated by any Native American nation, especially that of the local Hopi and Yavapai-Apache nations, in a time where federal law prohibited them from performing the same dances and practices that were being emulated. The non-native performers called themselves the 'Smoki People.'"You significantly rewrote the cited part. Compared to the existing version, how is the rewritten version more consistent with the cited source? Does the source describe the individuals as a "fraternal order"? It's strange to conceive of the group as a fraternal order. Does it talk about the specific Native American nations' disapproval? It also doesn't seem neutral to change from Frontier Days to "world’s oldest rodeo"; it appears as an attempt to make everything look more significant. Then you added that the group met "in relative secrecy". Which source does that come from? Is it Miller? You added that the museum hosts charity programs. Source? 10.000 artifacts as opposed to 2.000. Prehistory vs Pre-Columbian era. Source? "displays are well regarded by experts and patrons alike". Not neutral, and bit of a banal observation. "Special exhibits are either unique or rotate on an irregular schedule, but are typically 4–6 months in duration" A lot of technical detail about the operations of the museum. Seems unlikely that this would be in the cited source. Also, doesn't seem due in an encyclopedic article. Eager to hear your reply. twsabin 20:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I’ve reviewed the source on the “Smoki Tribe” issue more thoroughly and it appears as though it is not very definitive on the original name nor its own references for the name. The most authoritative source on this issue, I posit, would be the Arizona Corporation Commissions government website which shows the organization’s official name in 1939 onward until its dissolution in 1991. It is clear that it’s name is “The Smoki People”, here https://ecorp.azcc.gov/BusinessSearch/BusinessInfo?entityNumber=00382847 and we can certainly add that source to the final revision. The other sources referring to “the Smoki People” such as the Smithsonian and such are authoritative, but I agree that they are certainly detached enough to pose the question as to not sway beyond reasonable doubt. Thus, the State’s record of what the group incorporated and identified itself as without any registered alias should be sufficient. Also, the museums own website further indicates “ The museum construction was completed in 1935 by a non-Native, community-minded social group, the Smoki People, with assistance from depression-era work program participants. The museum took the name of its founders.” (This is on their “About” page at https://www.museumofindigenouspeople.org/about-museum-of-indigenous-people which we could also incorporate into refs for some of the earlier info).

As for the “fraternal order” addition, the Museum website link mentioned above actually may be a better and far more authoritative source for that addition, however we should certainly change “fraternal order” to “social group” which is what the Smoki People are described as in that section of their website. Fraternal Order was an oversight by my own personal knowledge of the history there and that was a slip-up I missed. I propose, we change “fraternal order” to “social group” on those grounds.

The statement about festivals and education programs as well as exhibit rotations was a generalized statement summarizing their Museum event calendar which is located at https://www.museumofindigenouspeople.org/events-mip and in-site links therein. The bit about indigenous rights activism was also taken from their “About” page as well as common knowledge of the 1914 Indian Act of the U.S. Congress (prohibiting Native American ceremony and dance as well as establishing a lack of federal voting rights and native sovereignty etc), a majority of which was repealed in the 70s and 80s but apparently still warrants activist attention (the museum’s about page goes into more detail there as well) going into detail about that historical movement seemed to exceed the scope of the article. Some sources we should probably add for better foundation on these fronts aside from museum pages are mostly surrounding the name change but are from local or national press and include plenty of indications of activist activity in the museum which precipitated its name change among other things like festivals and such: https://www.nhonews.com/news/2020/oct/06/smoki-museum-changes-name-museum-indigenous-people/ & https://www.dcourier.com/news/2020/feb/09/prescott-smoki-museum-now-museum-indigenous-people/.

With the time period being changed to pre-historic, these are, once again, the museum’s own words: “ On exhibit are pre-historic, historic, and contemporary examples of Indian cultural and artistic material from the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.” Found at the bottom of that same about page referencing the “Smoki People” linked above to their website.

With the changing of the mentioning of the pottery as “well-regarded by experts,”etc. I simply reasoned that it was an improvement on the original text which was something along the lines of “the museums Pottery specimen are impressive” without any quotation or attribution. It was clearly the opinion of the original section author, I wouldn’t object to something even more neutral or even deleted that statement altogether. Also, I wouldn’t object to deleting the information about the special exhibit rotation period as that was, just like the pottery statement, a correction and not really an addition. I opine that it sounds far to much like a travel-guide to me, but I leave that to your discretion whether deleting it improves the encyclopedic tone as it wasn’t an addition of mine.

With regard to the number of articles possessed by the Museum, the number 10,000 was certainly a typo that I had made pulling the wrong figure from their page. The correct number is “3,600+“ catalogued artifacts and collections possessed by the museum, according to the museum curator, Dr. Andy Christensen, who designates that figure specifically in his bio on the 2021 “Meet the Staff” page linked here (this also has the current director and president of the board that I had also added, by the way): https://www.museumofindigenouspeople.org/meet-our-team-and-board.

The addition of the Yavapai-Apache was central to the identity of the Hopi Nation being that at the time of the original writing of the reference the Hopi were thought to be the only indigenous nation in the Verde Valley area, but the Yavapai and Apache (from where the county draws its name) were almost homogenous to the culture of the Hopi and today have federal distinction as a sovereign nation in its own right in the 1990s. This is found on their official government site https://yavapai-apache.org/yavapai-apache-nation/. Also, the use of “Hopi Nation” or “Yavapai-Apache Nation” is the ethnically appropriate and legal name for the collective citizens and/or government of those respective Native-American sovereignties. This applies to all native-American government or community under the federal recognition of their sovereignty as independent nations, and has culturally deprecated the use of the word “tribe” to describe the individual cultural identities, which some see to be derogatory and indicative of savagery. A collective of Native American government representatives issued the reasoning behind the necessary distinction in 2012, stating “ Use nation instead of Tribe. Native nations are independent nations within a nation. The term nation shows respect for sovereignty and the fact that Native nations each have their own systems of government. Globally, we have trivialized the term Tribe (think “bride tribe,” “political tribalism,” etc.).“ (source: https://nativegov.org/news/how-to-talk-about-native-nations-a-guide/ ). To not do so may be considered politically or racially inappropriate to the cultural involved. In that same spirit of neutrality I did use “Caucasian” or “non-native” (personally prefer the latter) to replace “white”, and “white men” and “white residents” who were the target of the controversy being discussed (referring to the Smoki People). I do not object to any other replacement or rewrite using even more general terms, however I figured it was the least change necessary to take out some racially charged language.

I could probably dig up some more refs by the next day or two if you’d like, but they’d be pretty redundant beyond minor incongruence with the travel guides and such cited in the Article already. Let me know. Thanks. Luxnir (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Luxnir (talk) 07:10, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the long delay, and thanks for the ping.We agree about "fraternal order" now, social group is fine.I don't think that the article should summarize the event calendar. It isn't encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not supposed to offer this kind of information based on WP:NOTGUIDE, even in summarized form, especially not just based on a primary reference. There should be as little reliance on the museum's website as possible.Activism bit: I encourage you to reinclude something similar, incorporating those other sources which you've brought up.Pre-historic: I get that now, I guess that's fine.Well regarded bit: Please let's keep that out, every museum is supposed to be at least somewhat impressive, positively received by visitors, experts, etc. Saying something positive in such a generalized manner is not valid encyclopedic tone.Number of items: I endorse the change to an accurate number, with reference to the museum's site, that's certainly fine.Tribe: Despite the trend to avoid the word tribe, I think that, at least when the history of the group is considered, this word should not be absolutely avoided; this connects with WP:NOTCENSORED (see the n-word article). At least one mention of "Smoki Tribe" is due, to accurately transmit to readers the historic name.Your reply and your general approach is good, and I appreciate your good will. My response is much more terse than I'd hoped for; still I hope that it's minimally satisfactory, and that we will soon come to an agreement on all the points. twsabin 17:45, 11 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I agree with your conclusions in the response. In addition, I want to ensure that updating the director, president, and curator positions is also agreed upon.

Luxnir (talk) 20:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, certainly. twsabin 04:16, 12 February 2022 (UTC)