I loved Paul Apodaca's concise explanation of the origin of Native
American history as 'natural history'.

As an Anthropology trained Director of a 'General' museum which included
Natural History and History, I thought about this question a lot. In
that setting it was easy to conceptually split the rocks, shells, birds
and animals from Native American materials by naming Ethnographic
collections as a separate area of collecting.

I also came to the conclusion that 'history' is equivalent to the
retrospective anthropology of one's own culture.  Since, in History
museums, we deal with the history of the various ethnic groups in our
area, it follows that Native American history should be no different.
We just have resources (archaeology and oral tradition) that provides a
longer, deeper history than for, say, our Scottish, Portuguese or
Chinese heritage people.

I hope that, over time, more and more Natural History Museums will shift
to the idea of 'natural history'  as including all humans and their
relation to the natural world.  (Some already do.)  With the new century
I'll bet we'll see  interest in environmental history burgeon  --both
the environmental movement and all preceding knowledge about the
relationship of humans to the enviroment--  that would be a perfect
evolutionary step (no pun intended)  for the 19th century born Natural
History museum.

Lucy Skjelstad

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