ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two important developments in Indian Country they are the repatriation of material objects and human remains from non-Native institutions and the concomitant expansion of venues for Native self-representation, including indigenously controlled museums and cultural centers. In just a few years of existence, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, the NMAI was given a mandate to move toward a majority representation of Native Americans on its board, to inventory all human remains in its collection and to repatriate Native artifacts and human remains at the request of affiliated tribes. The NMAI is a postcolonial museum that uses strategies of representation, including multivocality and pastiche, that are identified with postmodernism but are also appropriate for representing the diversity of indigenous cultures. The hemispheric reach of the NMAI comes across as a highly unusual strategy of localization for a "National Museum" on the National Mall.
