Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life Along the North Pacific Coast

February 3, 2006–January 2, 2007

Washington, DC

Listening to Our Ancestors explores how Native people along the coast of Washington State, British Columbia, and Alaska continue time-honored practices in an ever-changing modern world. The exhibition features more than 400 ceremonial and everyday objects, as well as commentary from representatives of eleven contemporary North Pacific Coast Native nations.

The exhibition includes a wide variety of pieces, from intricately woven and ornamented dance blankets to halibut fishing hooks, finely carved and painted masks of supernatural creatures to spoons carved from the horns of mountain goats. Each object reflects the creativity of people whose art has been collected by museums worldwide for more than a century.