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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
GABINO RETIRES Gabino Jimenez, the Museum’s artist-in-residence, retired February 9, 2008, after 31 years of delighting the public with his weaving skills and gracious good humor. Gabino first came to the Museum in July of 1977 to demonstrate the technique of Oaxacan weaving as part of the Museum’s summer program. He used two handmade looms to weave tapas, rugs as large as seven by nine feet, and tapetes, smaller wall hangings. Gabino was so popular with visitors that he returned the following summer, and then became a regular artist-in-residence, working Wednesdays through Sundays. He prepared his wool with natural dyes, carded it, and then spun it into yarn. Children loved to watch the process and were especially delighted when he revealed how he made cochineal dye. He showed how a tiny white bug, which lives on cactus, became a beautiful red dye when squashed! We will all miss Gabino—Museum staff, board, volunteers, and visitors alike. Former Development Officer Elisa Lurkis wrote the following article about Gabino in 2005. It is reprinted here in its original form. — Rose Tyson, Curator of Physical Anthropology and Museum History About Gabino Jimenez by Elisa Lurkis Gabino Jimenez was born in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, and he grew up in the historic weaving village of Teotitlan del Valle. When Gabino was four years old, his father passed away and he was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather was one of the master weavers of the village and introduced Gabino to the loom at a young age. When he was seven years old, he began carding and spinning wool. By the time Gabino was nine, his grandfather had recognized the boy’s talent and made him his own small loom. His grandfather began teaching him how to weave intricate designs and combine the various colors of wool. Each had to be carefully dyed, and Gabino was quick to learn all of the steps of the weaving process.
Having sharpened his weaving skills and explored new designs, Gabino gained the confidence to travel to Tijuana on la frontera. In 1956, he came to live in San Diego, where he supplemented his income by working as a gardener, a maintenance person, and a painter. But his great love was always his weaving. By 1976, he had returned to weaving full time. Gabino came to the San Diego Museum of Man in 1977 to demonstrate and sell his weavings to Museum visitors. He set up his traditional foot loom in the Museum and was an instant attraction. School children especially loved watching his shuttle glide back and forth, and he often let them try their hand at carding or spinning, as his grandfather had done with him. Thirty-one years later, at the time of his retirement for health reaons, Gabino was still weaving wonderful tapestries at the Museum. His weavings are in homes and collections around the world. Visitors loved to watch “the master at his work.” Gabino still used the hand-carved shuttle given to him by his grandfather, who also shared the legends of his designs. He dyed, carded, and spun all of his own wool and continued to be drawn to the native motifs of his village and the designs of the Southwest. However, he was not limited to those designs and often filled special requests—from hall runners to accent pillows. One look at his face, as he stood at his loom, told observers that Gabino Jimenez loved doing what he loves best. We wish him well in his retirement. He will be greatly missed.
GREAT NEWS FOR THE MUSEUM! The Museum of Man is pleased to announce its recent Save America’s Treasures grant award of $300,000. This funding will be used to begin renovation of the Museum’s collections storage area. The overall project is a multiyear, multimillion-dollar endeavor to improve and modernize the Museum’s collections space. Save America’s Treasures is a national effort to protect America’s threatened cultural treasures, including historic structures, collections, works of art, maps, and journals that document and convey the history and culture of the United States. THE BONE BOX: by Rose Tyson, Curator of Physical Anthropology An Educational Resource In Memory of Daniel V. Elerick For the past year, Marlo Nalven, a graduate student at San Diego State University, has been developing the Bone Box, a specialized outreach kit for the Museum’s Education Department. Her project, completed in November, was in partial fulfillment of the M.A. degree in anthropology. The kit honors the memory of Dan Elerick, long-time staff member in the physical anthropology laboratory, who passed away in October 2005. Many of Dan’s friends and relatives contributed to the fund established to purchase the kit’s components. Dan served 29 years in the United States Navy, retiring in 1978 to begin a new career in anthropology and museum work. Graduating with honors from Southwestern College, he volunteered at the Museum in the physical anthropology laboratory. In the days before computers and spell-checkers, he proofread a catalog of over a thousand entries by reading it backwards (“An old Navy trick,” he said). In 1979, he was hired by the Museum, dividing his time by working in the lab and in security. He continued with his studies at San Diego State University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1983 with a bachelor of arts in anthropology. His focus for the last 20 years of his life was the bibliography Human Paleopathology and Related Subjects, published in 1997, and the nine supplements published on disk from 1998 through 2006. This massive work contains approximately 50,000 references and is used by students and scholars worldwide for the study of human diseases of the past. Dan was especially interested in making the Museum’s resources available to the public, and this outreach kit is just the type of endeavor he would have appreciated.
The Bone Box contains casts of over 30 skulls and bones used to teach
students about the skeleton and how to estimate age, sex, ancestry, and
stature and to identify trauma, disease, and occupational stress. Designed
for high school and college students, the Bone Box can be adapted for
younger students as well. Human anatomy, osteology, and forensic anthropology
classes can benefit from this hands-on approach to learning. The kit
includes instructional materials such as lesson plans, lectures, lab exercises,
a video, and measuring instruments. Educational aspects of the Bone Box
are based on California State Standards. It is described in the current
Education Department’s brochure and is ready for teachers to check out.
The Museum is grateful for the generosity of all those who contributed to
Dan’s outreach kit—the Bone Box—and to Marlo Nalven for her diligence
in making it happen.
MUSEUM MEMBERSHIP NEWS by Monika Wert, Membership Coordinator
I would like to thank all of the members who took the time to fill out the survey in the last newsletter. We value your feedback and look forward to continuing to upgrade the facilities and programs of the Museum of Man. We anticipate an exciting 2008 with exemplary new exhibitions and exclusive new programs for all of our members.
We are excited to begin offering Birthday Party packages in the Children’s Discovery Center on the weekends. Explore Ancient Egypt during a two-hour private party and then enjoy complimentary admission to all of the Museum’s other exhibitions for the rest of the day. A child’s birthday party includes private use of the Children’s Discovery Center for two hours, craft activity, a Museum host, favors, and a special T-shirt for the birthday child. Please contact the Membership Department at (619) 239-2001 or follow the link above for more information about hosting your child’s next birthday party at the Museum of Man. The Saint Francis Chapel is available year-round as a wonderful site for wedding ceremonies of all faiths. Its unique private space can accommodate up to a hundred guests. All Museum members will benefit from a 20% discount on the Chapel usage fee through September 2008. All proceeds from the Chapel directly support the Museum of Man’s education programs. Contact Monika Wert at (619) 239-2001 ext. 23 or visit the link above for details about hosting a wedding at the Museum of Man. GOOD NEW BOOKS IN THE SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY by Wayne Saunders, Editor and Library Assistant A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America by Nancy Shoemaker of the University of Connecticut (Oxford, 2004, 211 pp.) carefully documents the mutual stereotyping of “Indians” and “Europeans” (including the meanings of these words) as a growing tendency to overlook the similarities between the two. Both groups possessed written and oral history, for example, but both came to characterize Native Americans as talkers and Europeans as writers. (Witness the abundance of eighteenth-century paintings of meetings between the chronicling English and the orating Indians.) But Shoemaker’s book is filled with telling and sometimes startling evidences. She lucidly examines hundreds of recorded conversations between the two cultures on the subjects of land, kings, writing, alliances, gender, and race, and concludes it is only because they initially saw the other as like themselves in these matters that they were eventually able to focus on the differences. Their antagonism and self-interest eventually made them see each other as fundamentally unlike in nature, each group stereotyping the other by delimiting its own self-image. Powwow, edited by Clyde Ellis et al. (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2005, 309 pp.), presents 14 new essays by 21 scholars on the history and significance of the powwow in the lives of Native Americans primarily, but of non-Natives too. Even the articles focusing on history question how that history is to be written and what part non-Natives have in it. An influential essay by James Howard in 1955 argued that the relatively homogeneous post–World War II powwows were reflections of a new pan-Indian identity that was replacing individual tribal identities in reaction to the dominant white culture. But many of the articles in Powwow produce compelling evidence that powwows actually strengthen tribal identities, that powwow traditions among the tribes are similar because they derive from a common project, but that they don’t begin to exhaust the emotions each tribe has for the powwow in its own way. Inter-tribal replaces pan-Indian as the adjective of choice. Powwow is less a coping mechanism than an agency of self-creation. Most of the articles therefore are as full of anecdotes as they are of theories: about the songs and dances of the performers, the patter of the emcee, the responsibilities of the powwow “princess,” and appropriations of the mainstream powwow by Southern tribes looking for political recognition, by gay Native Americans, German hobbyists, and New Agers.
THE NO-LONGER MISSING LINK! One hundred years ago archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett was instrumental in the passage of the Antiquities Act, the first United States law to provide general protection for any general cultural or natural resource. A year later, Hewett founded the School of American Research in Santa Fe. From 1916 to 1929, he served as the Museum of Man's Executive Director. His vision for the education of people about human physical and cultural development and creative and artistic expression was his life, and it knew no boundaries.
Now, the Museum of Man and the School of American Research (SAR) in Santa Fe will collaborate to develop a unique project honoring Edgar Lee Hewett. According to Dr. Mari Lyn Salvador, Executive Director, this partnership is an ideal match for the Museum on many levels. "My professional career has been grounded in research and philosophy similar to that of Edgar Hewett when he initiated the anthropology department at the University of New Mexico, and the School of American Research. His ideals and vision join seamlessly with those of the Museum of Man. I am delighted to be in a position to help coordinate something substantial to honor him." Dr. Salvador and staff will be working with Dr. Linda Cordell, distinguished archaeologist, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and museum professional with years of research in New Mexico. The project will include a traveling exhibit, publication, symposia, educational programs for schools, and opportunities for collaboration with local anthropology and archaeology associations. "I am convinced that if Edgar Hewett were alive today, he would be amazed how his vision for preservation and education has not only endured but flourished—in San Diego, Santa Fe, and globally. I think he would also be delighted about the links that he and I share with the two institutions! It is a pleasure to honor his contributions to anthropology and museums," Dr. Salvador said.
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