A traveling Smithsonian exhibit opening this weekend at the Watkins will provide a looking glass for issues of Native representation that hit as close to home as Haskell and Arrowhead Stadium.
The Land of Lakes butter maiden. Coppertone sunscreen. LEGO toy sets. Barbie dolls. Indian Head Cornmeal. Powwow Cleanser. The list goes on of brands and products divorced from Indigenous culture that have used depictions of Native people for marketing.
Starting Saturday, artifacts from these companies will be on display in the “Americans” exhibit, housed in the community room at the Watkins Museum of History.
“Americans” comes to Lawrence from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Curated by Paul Chaat Smith, Comanche, and Cécile R. Ganteaume, the exhibit seeks to demonstrate how Indigenous history and culture are not separate from United States history, but preexisting, entwined and often co-opted.
Four seminal moments serve as jumping points for the exhibit’s overarching narratives: the invention of Thanksgiving; the life of Matoaka, more commonly known as Pocahontas; the Trail of Tears; and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
‘We are more than a relic to be fetishized’
One section of “Americans” is packed almost floor to ceiling with objects and labels.
A vitrine encases a model of a Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter. Across the way is a cascade of promo materials for Disney’s 1995 movie “Pocahontas.” Around the corner is a vintage photo of a woman standing next to a Cigar Store Indian.
The effect is akin to the visual echo of fun house mirrors, eternally replicating misrepresentations of Native people to drive home just how prolific the issue is.
“I think that the thing that I learned from this exhibition is just how frequently Native Americans’ imagery and iconography appears in American culture, and how little we actually recognize that,” said Robbie Davis, project director with the Smithsonian’s Museums on Main Street program.
Notably, the exhibit includes a baby onesie, bib and shoe set branded with the telltale red and gold of the Kansas City football team, the “Chiefs.” The bib sports the defining arrowhead logo.
The team name and its visual marketing tactics have long sparked debate about cultural appropriation versus appreciation. Game day rituals are still marred by acts of systemic racism, as attendees perform the so-called “tomahawk chop” while wearing Native-themed costumes and face paint.
One camp believes that the KC team honors Indigenous people. Travis Campbell, Haskell Cultural Center & Museum director, hopes that local and KC-based football fans make the trip to see “Americans” to complicate this notion.
“When it comes to honoring any group of people … you need to ask that group of people how they would like to be honored,” Campbell said. “Let’s say someone’s a vegan. I wouldn’t make them a steak dinner to honor them.”
In collaboration with the exhibit, Campbell, Cherokee, Choctaw and Delaware, will host a panel discussion at HCCM called “Honoring Truth: Indigenous Representation in Media, Education, and Public Discourse in the Age of ‘Americans.'”
The panel will comprise multiple Haskell professors and local experts like Rhonda LeValdo, co-founder of Not in Our Honor. Formed in 2005 by a group of Native students from KU and Haskell, they have long launched protests against sports teams that misrepresent Native culture for marketing, such as the Chiefs.
Campbell hopes that the exhibit will show viewers that Native people “are more than a marketing tool.”
“We are more than a relic to be fetishized, because that fetishization is what we’re seeing now, and that’s what’s so dangerous,” he said. “You’re othering, you’re dehumanizing an entire ethnicity, which is just disgusting.”
‘Haskell and our students and employees contribute to the larger story of Lawrence’
Colonial collecting institutions have historically displayed sacred or culturally significant Native objects and human remains with impunity. Curatorial choices have misinstructed museumgoers that Indigenous communities represent a great people of the past, now diminished and faded. Efforts such as NAGPRA have ameliorated the issues but haven’t eradicated them.
“I’m hoping that this exhibit helps people to think about that and to remember that tribal nations are here today in a modern context,” Campbell said. “We did not cease to be in 1900. We are here now. We have our own governments. We have our own autonomy. We are very well aware of how we would like to be perceived.”
Andrew Stockmann, curator of exhibitions at the Watkins, has led onsite installation efforts. He also worked with both museums to provide three supplementary exhibits refracting the themes of “Americans.”
A display in the Watkins community room focuses on Indigenous peoples of Franklin County, Kansas, where members or multiple tribes were forcibly relocated in the 1830s and ‘40s. On the second floor sits a permanent installation on Iⁿ ‘zhúje ‘waxóbe, or, roughly translated, the Sacred Red Rock, that was rematriated to the Kaw people in 2024.
Campbell’s own curatorial piece, called “A Question of Representation,” stands outside of the community room to further tease apart representation on a local scale.
“After realizing that so many people in our community have either never visited Haskell, or don’t know much about it, I wanted to think about four things that make Haskell special and that they might not realize,” Campbell wrote in a message. “Just as how the experiences of Native American peoples have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the larger American experience, the experiences of Haskell and our students and employees contribute to the larger story of Lawrence.”
For Stockmann, this expansive exercise in curation represents an ongoing effort at the Watkins.
“I think this is a great tie-in to that longer-term goal of centering Indigenous voices and incorporating them throughout our permanent exhibit — not just putting them in one area, but showing how they intersected with the rest of the community, too,” he said.
Join the conversation
Campbell and Stockmann both hope that attendees take what they learn from “Americans” back into the world.
“We want people to engage with their community,” Stockmann said. “That’s what we’re all about, making history contemporary or using current issues in our community and relating that to history.”
Campbell encourages non-Native folks to operate with respect, but ask questions. In addition to reaching out to HCCM, he said, “It is so easy to Google a tribe and get their appropriate offices’ contact information from their websites.”
People can also submit questions for the “Honoring Truth” panel until noon on Friday, Sept. 12. The event will take place that night from 7 to 9 p.m.
Stockmann will give guided tours of the “Americans” exhibit. Groups interested in scheduling one can email info@watkinsmuseum.org.
“Americans” will be on display at the Watkins Saturday, Aug. 23 through Sunday, Oct. 5, with a free opening reception set for 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22.
To accommodate more visitors, the museum has expanded its viewing hours. Folks can see “Americans” from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturdays, and from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
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