Regarding Elizabeth Cook's enquiry about presenting native American houses
as homes:

I wouldn't be surprised if you find very little on this topic!  a) There's
little published on house interpretation at all (they tend to be house
histories and descriptions); b) the collecting of houses is still (in
Australia, anyway) quite separate from 'ethnographic' collecting - a
cultural dualism that persists and persists.

A couple of years ago I surveyed Australian house museums (about 200) and
found just one that claimed a causal Aboriginal connection: a 'black
trackers hut', part of a mounted police complex in Melbourne.  Needless to
say it wasn't interpreted at any depth.  Of course it's possble that
Aboriginal people lived with or near many of the grand mansions and farms
that are now museums, as servants, labourers etc, but I haven't yet heard
of any such interpretation in these circumstances either!

The absence of the houses of famous Aboriginal people is a conspicuous
absence among the historic house resource in this country.

Is it any different elsewhere?


Linda Young
Cultural Heritage Management
University of Canberra
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