"The word Potomac means "where the goods are brought in" and it dates from the local Indian tribe rudely displaced here centuries ago by colonial whites intent on a New World. The word seems perfect for the whiff of irony and history in the air this month as the last of 800,000 Indian artifacts � priceless goods, in fact � were trucked in from New York City to become the bedrock treasure of the new National Museum of the American Indian.

Even incomplete, the museum stands as a modernistic cynosure, defiantly staring down its immediate neighbor, the gleaming white Capitol, where so many treaty promises to American Indians were written and broken. The museum marks a grand turning point in that history, a sacred federal site ceded to Indian management and broadcasting a message of hardy survival, not tribal extinction, to throngs of tourists."

Get the Story:
Francis X. Cline: The American Tribes Prepare Their National Showcase (The New York Times 3/28)
pwnyt

Relevant Links:
National Museum of the American Indian - http://www.nmai.si.edu

Related Stories:
NMAI: From saving Indians to honoring them (03/18)