Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center

The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center is a new tribally owned-and-operated, state-of-the-art complex located in Mashantucket, Conn. Opened on August 11, 1998, it presents the rich history of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, the histories and cultures of other tribes, and the region's natural history through a series of innovative presentations.

Utilizing the latest in exhibit design and technology, the 85,000-square-foot permanent indoor exhibits present four types of interpretation to the visitor: dioramas, text panels, interactive computer programs, and a series of films. Evolving Mashantucket Pequot life is conveyed through dioramas and exhibits, films and videos, interactive programs, archival materials, ethnographic and archaeological collections, and commissioned works of art and traditional crafts by Native artisans. A glacial crevasse, a caribou hunt of 11,000 years ago, a walk-through, 16th-century woodland Indian village, a 17th-century Pequot fort, and an outdoor, 18th-century farmstead set on two acres with orchards and gardens are some of the exhibits that take visitors from the last Ice Age to modern times.

Seven computer interactives, including more than three hours of original documentary video, have been created. A total of 13 films and video programs are on view throughout the permanent exhibit space in 10 locations. The visually impaired are able to move through the exhibits utilizing an infrared communications system and access audio interpretation, with selected replica artifacts available for all to touch in specially designated areas, including spearheads, fur clothing and tools. The films, computer interactives and videos are closed captioned for the hearing impaired.

The conceptual design for the permanent exhibits was created by tribal members, consultants and DMCD Incorporated, and the exhibit design by Design Division, Inc., of New York, Michael A. Hanke, principal.

Highlights of the permanent exhibits include the following:

The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation/ A Tribal Portrait

The first gallery serves to welcome visitors to the center with an exhibit entitled The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, presenting color photographs of tribal members at work and play in their community. Displays include artifacts, photomurals, maps, and a topographical model of the reservation. The last exhibit, A Tribal Portrait, features large black and white portraits of individual tribal members and families. The photographs in both galleries are by the Native American artist David Neel. The oral testimonies of approximately 50 tribal members on issues of family, community, tradition, land and their past, present and future, are heard throughout the exhibits.

The Glacial Crevasse

The journey back in time begins in a simulated glacial crevasse. Visitors step onto an escalator or into an elevator and travel down into a glacier. They see dripping water, feel chilling air, and hear the recorded sounds of an actual glacier, with its creaking ice and whistling winds.

A World of Ice

This area explores the impact of the Wisconsin Glacier on landforms in North America as well as its regional and local effects. Computer interactive stations allow visitors to view topographical effects of advancing and retreating glaciers over thousands of years on three levels – North America, Southern New England, and the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation -- access video, and view animation. A large model of the earth, displaying the advancing and retreating activity of the Wisconsin Glacier, photos of glacial impact on the reservation site, a tactile model, and text are part of the exhibit.

The Arrival of the People

A gallery features contemporary works by nine Native artists that visually represents the creation story of each artist’s tribe. The works, including a seven-foot-tall raven costume with an elaborately carved mask and an intricately detailed beaded cradleboard, are accompanied by text panels that present each creation story and the artist’s interpretation. To complement the artwork, video segments on view in an adjacent mini-theater shows storytellers relating Kwakiutl, Kiowa, Cayuga and Mohave creation stories in their own languages.

Life in a Cold Climate

Following an area containing life-size replicas of a mastodon and giant beaver -- animals that inhabited this part of the continent over 11,000 years ago -- visitors encounter a dramatic caribou kill diorama. The circular exhibit, 50 feet in diameter, vividly depicts life-like hunters pursuing caribou among streams and rock outcroppings. The 11,000-year-old scene is enhanced by a sophisticated sound system, an interactive program that explores the diorama through computer animation, along with text, graphics, and numerous tactile artifacts. Stone tools recently found at the 9,000-year-old Hidden Creek archaeological site at Mashantucket are displayed in an adjacent area.

The Changing Environment

This series of exhibits explores the impact of the changing social and natural environment on Native life 6,000 years ago. Adapting to the change of seasons, people gathered a diverse array of plants for food and harvested fish at Mashantucket. Four dioramas reflect daily life in each season in different time periods. Winter depicts a family keeping warm and telling stories in a rock shelter; spring is illustrated by a scale model fishing scene; and summer reveals an exchange of gifts. Autumn showcases the bounty found in a typical cross-section of land. Dozens of plants, trees and animals are shown, and an accompanying computer interactive program locates them and describes each sample’s function in daily life. An oral history program entitled The Four Seasons relays tribal members’ insights into contemporary seasonal activities. Visitors can also look at a core taken from the cedar swamp -- visible from an adjacent window -- which shows plant remains over the last 15,000 years. Display cases filled with prehistoric tools and their modern counterparts are also on view. An adjacent 20-seat theater shows video segments on pre-historic tools from the Northeast, their uses, and how they were made.

The Pequot Village

Visitors enter a walk-through re-creation of a 16th-century coastal Pequot village. The high-tech 22,000-square-foot "immersion environment" diorama shows daily life over the course of 50 years leading up to European contact, and reflects the coastal and maritime traditions of the Pequots. Visitors can walk among chestnuts, oaks and maples, through wigwams, and past handcrafted figures shown in cooking, talking, weaving and working poses. Hundreds of sounds can be heard. These are accompanied by the smells of the woodlands and campfires. Visitors who wander into a palisaded fort dated 50 years later than the village notice new materials and household items illustrating the impact of European contact on village life. All figures were cast from Native American models, and the traditional clothing, ornamentation and wigwams were made by Native craftspeople. A portable, digital audio system is provided for all visitors at areas of interest, as will an infrared communications system for the visually impaired. An adjacent gallery, Pequot Society, explores the Tribe’s social and political organization, the position of the sachem, and other topics such as the powwaw, native languages, Pequot territory, ceremonies, rituals, spirituality, medicine and conflict. A computer interactive program allows visitors to learn word-phrases of some eastern Algonquian languages. The Daily Life Gallery showcases a variety of ethnographic materials from the Tribe’s collections and videos of Native artisans creating many of the objects on view in the village, such as the dugout canoe, wigwams, clothing and food.

The Arrival of the Europeans

This gallery, composed of a diorama and four main exhibits, introduces the arrival of the Dutch and English settlers, explain the political, economic, and religious reasons that Europeans came to this continent, present European and Native trade goods, and examine how early contact affected the Pequots. Another area describes how disease was introduced to the Pequot population in the 1630s, killing 50 percent of its members.

Prelude to War

The period leading up to the Pequot War of 1637 was a time of great conflict among the Pequots, Dutch, English and other tribes in the region. This area begins with an exhibit on the Trade Triangle, a trading pattern involving European goods, southern New England Native wampum, and northern Native furs. A video presentation on the history and making of wampum and its changing role in the society is included. Three exhibits follow that explore the tensions between the Pequots and the Dutch, the Pequots and the English, and the Pequots and other Native tribes in the years leading up to the Pequot War. In one gallery, Dutch, English and Pequot characters, portrayed by actors, present their views on opposing video screens. The dramatic vignettes relate the critical incidents that were the pretext for the Pequot War. At the center is a large model of the Pequot fort at Mystic and several cases displaying actual weapons and other military objects used in the war.

The Pequot War

In 1637, the colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts attacked the Mystic fort, killing approximately 600 Pequots. The Witness, a 30-minute, 70 mm. film, dramatizes the events surrounding the Pequot War in two wide-screen theaters, each seating 110 people. The film was produced and directed by Keith Merrill and George Burdeau, with Pequot parts translated into the Passamaquoddy language. Employing the enduring Native tradition of oral history as the narrative voice, the film features Wampishe, a Pequot elder who was a young boy at the time of the massacre and survived the carnage. Wampishe recounts the tragic events of the war to his grandson and urges him to keep the story alive by telling it to his own children and grandchildren.

Life on the Reservation

Visitors can learn about 11 important figures of the Reservation Period (1675 - 1970s) and evolving life on a reservation. The first figure is Cassacinamon, a Pequot sachem from 1645 to 1692, who holds a document confirming that the Pequots could live again at Mashantucket following the Pequot War. Moving along chronologically, visitors view a scale model and computer re-creation of a 17th-century Pequot fort that was found just 600 feet away from the Museum and Research Center. The interactive brings the fort to life, allowing visitors to "navigate" through the photorealistic scene, access video, and explore areas in depth.

Another highlight of this area is the re-creation of a farmstead house, circa 1780, with naturalistic figures reflecting a typical family of the time. Visitors can walk through the house and outside onto a two-acre, outdoor farmstead that includes orchards and gardens. Signage is available throughout, identifying plants, tools and farming techniques. The outdoor farmstead will be closed to the public during the winter months.

Visitors can also see figures representing a whaler from 1830, a couple who were members of a late 18th-century Christian movement, a late 19th-century laborer named Ephraim Williams, and Civil War veteran Austin George. A computer interactive, oral histories, and short films, including Our Remembered Sisters, describing the lives of three Mashantucket women in the first half of the 19th century, enhances the experience.

A mobile home is on display in the exhibit, symbolizing life on the reservation in the 1970s. Visitors are able to look into the home and listen to oral histories of tribal members who lived on the reservation during that decade. A special theater shows a film, Bringing the People Home, explaining how the Tribe rebuilt their nation and achieved Federal recognition in 1983.