Derenburg Indian Museum
The Derenburg Indian Museum (until 2014 Bretten Indian Museum ) was a public ethnographic private museum with exhibits from South , Central and North America in Derenburg in the Harz region ( Saxony-Anhalt ).
It was located in the Diedelsheim district of Bretten (Baden-Württemberg) from 1992 to October 2014 . After 22 museum years in rented rooms , a 1000 m² building was acquired in Derenburg, a district of Blankenburg (Harz) . The museum opened there in September 2015 and closed at the end of 2017 after a good two years.
description
The collection includes nearly 4,000 ethnographies, archaeological objects and exhibits from indigenous and non-indigenous Americans. There are also thousands of ethnographic photo documents, written and audio documents. Of these, around 1000 real objects are shown in the permanent exhibition and a further 100 to 400 in the changing special exhibitions, from all indigenous cultures from Tierra del Fuego to the Eskimos from 10,000 years ago to today and at the same time the "New Americans" such as emigrants, Indian missionaries, trappers , soldiers , Gold diggers, bison hunters.
In order to guide visitors on an adventure tour, several life-size dioramas with over 80 mostly self-designed realistic figures and animal preparations from the possum to the bison were created. In contrast to the traditional ethnological museums, the mostly original pieces have been supplemented with some museum reproductions , for example to show certain national costumes as a complete figure or a complete workshop of a Navajo silversmith from 1920. There is also an accessible, fully furnished log cabin of a trapper from around 1840 or a teepee tent in a winter landscape. Many authentic objects from horn spoons to buffalo droppings (fuel) can be touched and examined at three stations.
The oldest permanent exhibition outside the USA on the topic of “Code Talker / Windtalker” is dedicated to the Indian military radio operators from 1919 to 1961. Visitors can also hear the incomprehensible Navajo radio messages from the US Marines from 1944 acoustically . Outstanding Exhibits: Fire ants -Ritualhandschuh, blowpipes and other weapons from the Amazon , pre-Columbian grave supplements the Chimu and Inca from Peru. Hand-painted Delft "Manhattan Trade Beads", Cherokee -Kriegerhemd of 1840, several dance masks of the northwest coast, a vest Dakota - medicine man . Custers 7th Cavalry belt buckle , uniforms and weapons of the US Civil War and Indian Wars. Complete Chuck Wagon, Hotchkiss cannon from 1872 (of the same type used by the US Cavalry at the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890).
Four original Indian boats : birch bark canoe from Chippewa , wooden canoe from Yakima , historical dug-out dugout canoe from the Seminoles or Cherokee, tortora reed boat from the Inca from Lake Titicaca and other boat models made by Indians.
history
Since his first trip to the USA in 1963, Thomas Merbt has been intensively collecting and preserving objects from American history, archival documents and the intangible - such as old craft techniques or our Father's prayers in various Indian languages. The interest in the various indigenous cultures and the "clash since 1492" was awakened in the 1950s by grandfather Paul Lindner from Dresden and by joint visits to Patty Frank in the Radebeul Karl May Museum and the Leipzig Grassi Museum.
A large part of the exhibits were acquired from US soldiers in southern Germany in the 1970s by swapping them for old German collectibles, there were and are also donations from Indian missionaries or permanent loans from Amazon researcher Steffen Zimmermann . Indian art articles of these days are also exchanged with American tribal museums for realistic Indian figurines from Merbt's workshop. On June 5, 1992 the private collection in Bad Wimpfen / Neckar became the "Museum Old America" public museum, in 1997 Merbt became an honorary member of the Creek Indians from Florida and after moving and expanding it has been continued as the Bretten Indian Museum since August 24, 2003 . In 2010, the multilingual educational material film “Indians - Cultures in North America” was shot in the museum (screenplay and direction Thomas Merbt, producer MedienLB, Gauting).
Despite the regular annual museum festivals - similar to the "Pow Wows" - with Indian dancers from Canada, USA, Mexico, one of the highlights of the Bretten Museum in February 2013 was the visit of the Indian leader and co-founder of the AIM (American Indian Movement) Dennis Banks together with the Great-grandson of Geronimo, Henry V. Reyna.
The museum has been closed since 2018.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The last Harz Indian hangs up his moccasins , Mitteldeutsche Zeitung January 17, 2018, accessed January 16, 2019
Coordinates: 49 ° 2 ′ 21 ″ N , 8 ° 41 ′ 11.6 ″ E