By Marilyn Bauer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A woman's early 19th century woman's loin cloth

The "noble savages" of the New World, mythological creatures found in film, literature, paintings and paperbacks, were as much a result of contact with European cultures, as an economic ploy to bring in bucks through sales of buckskin.

Two distinguished exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum provide a rare look inside American Indian cultures as they developed and struggled to survive in a new economic system.

Uncommon Legacies: Native American Art from the Peabody-Essex Museum and A Window on the Past: Early American Dress from the John Painter Collection are unusual in their presentation of early artworks seldom seen in exhibitions.

"These two shows, the first from one of the oldest of American public institutions, the second from an important private collection, offer a unique glimpse at a range of American Indian cultures - from New England to Alaska - during a critical period of their history," says Glenn Markoe, curator of Native American art for the museum.

"They tell the fascinating story of the interaction of these people, both commercially and socially, with early American and European traders and missionaries - an interaction that can be seen both in the creative use of the imported materials and in the shapes and decorative designs. In spite of these influences, these early works display an extraordinary artistic integrity and a native sense of creativity that truly reflect the spirit of their makers."

IF YOU GO

Uncommon Legacies: Native American Art from the Peabody-Essex Museum, through Jan. 5 A Window on the Past: Early American Dress, from the John Painter Collection, through March 30 When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Where: Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park Admission: $5, $4 seniors and college students, free under 17. Saturdays free to all. Information: 721-2787 (ARTS), web site Gallery talk: Painter collection by Glenn Markoe, 2 p.m. today; Smart About Art appreciation seminar, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Nov. 12 and 16; Panel Discussion: Native American Art in Museums, moderated by Dr. Susan Labry Meyn.

Free from the filter of Western criticism and its attendant Eurocentricism, the exhibitions stand as presentations of exceptional design and craftsmanship on par with the art of the "civilized" world. The fact these exhibitions embody the cosmology of the various Indian tribes, provides other layers of discovery for the viewer.

"Seeing cannot be separated from ideas, knowledge and values," writes Peabody Essex Executive Director Dan L. Monroe in the foreword to the show's catalog. "Few types of art are embedded in so many complex and often conflicting layers of cultural assumption ... ranging from early views of Native Americans as savages to heroic views of native people as uniformly spiritual and in touch with the land. Neither of these views is accurate."

Centuries old

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., holds the oldest collection of indigenous American art in this hemisphere, with scores of masterworks from throughout North America. The collection totals 20,000 pieces, but about 100 historical works enhanced by rarely exhibited objects from European collections make up the traveling show.

The history of the indigenous art is intricately woven into the history of the museum.

In 1799, an elite group of sea captains founded the East India Marine Society, dedicated to emulating the great collecting voyages of Capt. James Cook. Among the leading intellectuals of their day and with an Enlightenment interest in other civilizations, the society gathered up treasures during the course of its members' interactions with native cultures.

These curios became the basis for the Peabody Essex collection.

"This is the first large-scale show of the early core of the collection," says John R. Grimes, curator of the museum's American Indian holdings. "It's been 50 or 100 years since many of these objects have been seen widely."

While the ship captains chronicled the creative output of the people with whom they had contact, they themselves were agents of social, political and economic change. What resulted was a fully developed tourist industry.

"What you're looking at are the artifacts the captains were looking for," says Dr. Susan Labry Meyn, guest curator and consulting ethnologist. "The people were intelligent. They were trading the things the captains and sailors wanted. It was the spiritual aspects of their lives that didn't change."

Native people began producing more for the burgeoning Euro-American market than for tribal needs, according to Dr. Meyn. "It's like people from Mars taking over Earth. Instantaneously, there are going to be clashes and change."

Natives didn't smoke pipes

These changes can best be seen in the carved argillite pipes, several of which are included in the show.

"The native people did not smoke pipes; they used tobacco like snuff," says Dr. Meyn. "It wasn't until the captains arrived that they started making pipes which were a combination of their clan crests - ravens, eagles, bears - and the Euro-American idea of Indians and tobacco."

Native artists used the pipes to experiment with composition and motifs including those taken from American and European ship design, apparel and furnishings.

Another example of this enterprise is an Abenaki birch bark canoe (Quebec, 1799) with wooden figures dressed in the latest fashions of the time. The craftsman who made the piece was a convert from one of the Catholic mission villages along the St. Lawrence River. An excellent example of tourist art, the "canoe of little savages" was made with the help of the nuns who understood Western taste.

"This piece is one of a large collection of model canoes in the exhibition," explains Dr. Markoe. "It's interesting this was happening at such an early stage in post-colonial America - after the Revolutionary War. People don't normally think of Indians making souvenir items at such an early date."

Niagra Falls evolution

A tray from the Great Lakes region (1840) shows the incorporation of silk-floss embroidery technique, brought to Quebec by the Ursuline nuns. Soon the nuns switched from the silk to the less expensive moose hair used by the natives for many years. Native embroiderers were influenced by the nun's floral design and a true cross-pollination occurred and resulted in a "line" of Indian souvenirs.

One of the principal outlets for items like the tray was Niagara Falls, which after the war of 1812 became a tourist destination and in 1830 the place for honeymoons.

"The souvenirs in this case - baskets, boxes, containers - much like the items made today were exported and used in American households," says Dr. Markoe. "People would put them on their cabinets or in displays. In this particular piece, you have a procession of Indians smoking pipes. The tray was made to cater to an American's notion of what an Indian is."

From 1750 to 1850 we see the influence of increased contact. Shoulder bags (1820) based on the design of European ammunition pouches (a Creek bag in the show dates from before the Trail of Tears, the removal of Southeastern Indians to reservations), an Aleut overcoat (1824) fashioned from mammal intestines in the manner of a Russian officer's military coat and appliquÈd with segments of dyed esophagus, a Dakota baby carrier (1840) with white quillwork and hanging tinker strips adorned with images of the Thunderbird and the oldest example (1832) of a goat wool and cedar bark Chilkat blanket with a diving killer whale woven into the surface.

The exhibition also contains items from South America: pre-Hispanic ceramics from the northern coast of Peru, more recent feathered headdresses from Brazilian Amazonia and an early 19th-century beaded woman's loin cloth.

E-mail mbauer@enquirer.com