Bringing Pequot Heritage to Life Imagine walking into a 16th-century Indian village and seeing life-size figures so perfectly detailed that for a moment, you think they are alive. Imagine smelling the homey aroma of a campfire, or hearing the sounds of a flock of geese overhead that just might make you look up to see if they fly by. Or witnessing a caribou hunt that took place 11,000 years ago, or shivering in a glacier where water drips and winds howl. These are some of the numerous and elaborate exhibits, painstakingly created through years of research and detailed craftsmanship, that are on permanent display at the new Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, which opened to the public on August 11, 1998, in Mashantucket, Conn. Michael A. Hanke, the principal of Design Division, Inc., the New York company responsible for the design of the 85,000-square-foot exhibit space, has been working on the project since 1992 (initially at the New York design firm, DMCD Incorporated, which created the conceptual design) with tribal members and consultants. "We were charged with developing exhibits and designing interiors that tell the story of the Pequots on their land prior to European contact," explains Hanke, who heads an interdisciplinary firm of exhibition designers, graphic designers, architects and writers. "We had to show the richness and complexity of their society. Then, we had to show what happened to them after European contact, and finally, to illustrate their life on the reservation—to show that they're still here, and have been here for 10,000 years. "We also studied the museum site and located exhibits in proximity to views and other relevant features of the landscape. Relating specific stories directly to the land surrounding the museum was very important to the Mashantucket Pequot people." To create the exhibits—which feature sophisticated computer interactives, state-of-the-art sound design, films and videos, not to mention artifacts and archival materials—Hanke worked closely with tribal members, consultants and specialists. "The Tribe wanted to adhere to the highest level of scholarship," he says. "They wanted to make these exhibits useful, especially to school children." Among the many people involved in the implementation of the permanent exhibits at varying levels and stages were tribal members, anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, acousticians, botanists, conservators, diorama and environmental artists, exhibit builders, filmmakers, fine art painters, glacial geologists, historians, illustrators, Native craftspeople and story tellers, oral historians, photographers, sculptors and life-cast mannequin sculptors, sound, lighting and interactive designers, scientists, a taxidermist, theater designers, and timber frame carpenters, who are specialists in historical structure rehabilitation and restoration. The 16th-century Pequot coastal village, which Hanke describes as "probably the most complex exhibit in the museum," employed the talents of numerous people in myriad disciplines and required years of research and authentication. This exhibit, which encompasses a village of 1550 and a palisaded area circa 1620, features 12 wigwams, a sweat lodge, dugout canoes, stone tools, woven cattail mats, weapons, food storage pits, a waterfall and streams, dozens of plant species, about 25 animal species, and hundreds of elements that comprised life in the 16th century. Fifty-one life-size, life-like figures, hand-crafted from casts of Native Americans are shown taking part in daily village activities. Also integrated into the village are 29 full-scale trees, including hickory, white oak, black gum and chestnut. "We wanted to put pine trees everywhere," recalls Hanke, "but Dr. William Neiring, a botanist, told us it had to be an oak-hickory forest. We went to Bluff Point State Park on the coast, 10 miles away, and located an oak-hickory forest analogous to what was here 400 years ago." The 22-foot-high, 600-foot-long mural, taken with a 360-degree camera and surrounding the village scene, was photographed there. The "village" chestnut trees were created from molds of old-growth trees found on a Wisconsin dairy farm. Finally, a state-of-the-art sound system employing 110 speakers and hundreds of sounds—from seagulls to crickets—was integrated into the village. "The whole environment is encased in acoustic material located behind the wall murals," says Hanke. "It makes you feel like you're standing outdoors. It's very unusual. It's a complete immersion experience. I hope that most people will suspend belief and find themselves in a 450-year-old Pequot village on the shore." At the Caribou Kill diorama, 50 feet in diameter, six caribou are seen being driven into a bog, where they are being speared by Paleo-Indians and then butchered. The "taxidermy" caribou are shown in various stages of the hunt, while 15 life-size Native American figures, clad in caribou skin clothing, take part in various aspects of the scene. Seven interactive terminals displaying short films and information about the diorama, are located along the visitors' pathway. "The Caribou Kill diorama is based on ethnographic analogy, that is, evidence from Native people in Labrador and northern Quebec," explains Hanke. "Evidence has also been found to show that there were caribou in Connecticut 11,000 years ago. This scene represents the big game era, a time when tribes followed and harvested herds." To create the proper environment, Hanke and his team, along with botanists and a photographer, traveled to northern Maine to a leather leaf bog filled with black spruce, and a terrain covered with sedge. They studied the landscape, which was similar to one that had existed in Connecticut 11,000 years ago, and their photographer took 360-degree panorama stills—one of which became the curved backdrop for the diorama. Equal attention was given to the other exhibitions and elements that form the permanent exhibits. Among them: A 14-foot square topographical model of the reservation, the centerpiece of the first gallery The Glacial Crevasse and A World of Ice, which bring visitors back in time to learn about the topographical effects of advancing and retreating glaciers The "creation stories" of four different tribes, enhanced by videos and contemporary paintings, ceramics, masks and Native beadwork, and videos The Changing Environment exhibits, which provide a detailed cross-section of the landscape, vegetation and animal life at Mashantucket 6,000 to 3,000 years ago The Life on the Reservation gallery, which looks at Mashantucket Pequot history over the last 300 years through the eyes of Mashantucket Pequot individuals, and also includes a re-created farmstead, circa 1780, and a mobile home symbolizing life on the reservation in the 1970s The Witness, a 30-minute, 70mm. film shown in two wide-screen theaters, which dramatizes the Pequot War (1636-1638), the first serious conflict between colonizers and the indigenous populations in New England. "Everything in the permanent exhibit was based on extensive discussions with tribal members and intensive research," says Hanke. "I hope people will be excited enough by what they see to learn more about the subject, that the exhibit will serve as a springboard for more study. We hope all Native people will be quite proud of it."