Harvard Club of Washington, DC

Curator's Tour of Song for a horse Nation at the NMAI

Emil Her many Horses is the Curator of this exhibition and he will be our guide on this FREE tour. Many thanks to Bob Herzstein '52 for suggesting this tour.

A Song for the Horse Nation

NMAI on the National Mall, Washington, DC

This critically acclaimed exhibition about the enduring relationship between Native people and horses currently at the museum's George Gustav Heye Center in New York will travel to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, in an expanded version. A Song for a Horse Nation in Washington doubles its exhibition space to 9,500 square feet. Fifteen more objects will be added to the DC exhibition including a 16-foot high, 38-foot circumference hand-painted 19th century Sioux tipi depicting battle and horse raiding scenes. Other highlights among the 112 items are a life-size horse-mannequin in spectacular, fully-beaded regalia and Geronimo and Chief Joseph's rifles.

A Song for the Horse Nation presents the epic story of the horse's influence on American Indian tribes beginning with the return of horses to the Western Hemisphere by Christopher Columbus to the present day. The exhibition traces how horses changed the lives of Native people from the way they traveled, hunted and defended themselves to how horse trade among tribes was the conduit for the magnificent spread of horses in the Plains and Plateau regions of the United States. It shows beautifully how horses became the inspiration for new artworks and how horse traditions continue today in Indian Country at fairs, rodeos and annual youth rides.

This exhibition was also on view at the National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center in New York, NY, November 14, 2009–July 10, 2011.

Biography of the Curator:

Emil Her Many Horses
Museum Specialist
Emil Her Many Horses is a curator in the
office of Museum Research at the
Smithsonian’s National Museum of the
American Indian. A member of the Oglala
Lakota nation of South Dakota, Her Many
Horses specializes in the central Plains
cultures and served as lead curator for the
museum’s inaugural permanent exhibition,
“Our Universes: Traditional Knowledge
Shapes Our World.”
Her Many Horses also served as cocurator
for the museum’s 2008-2010
exhibition “Identity by Design: Tradition,
Change and Celebration in Native
Women’s Dresses” and curator for the
“Our Peoples” community exhibitions featuring the history of the Chiricahua Apache of
New Mexico and the Blackfeet from Montana. His most recent exhibition, “A Song for
the Horse Nation,” opens on the National Mall Oct. 29, 2010 following its run at the
museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York City.
Established in 1989, through an Act of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of
the American Indian is an institution of living cultures dedicated to advancing knowledge
and understanding of the life, languages, literature, history and arts of the Native peoples
of the Western Hemisphere. The museum includes the National Museum of the American
Indian on the National Mall, the George Gustav Heye Center, a permanent exhibition and
education facility in New York City and the Cultural Resources Center, a research and
collections facility in Suitland, Md. For more information about the museum, visit
www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.