The wonder
of it all:

A species
rediscovered

Millions for
research, and
dioramas too

Guatemalan Masks:
The Pieper Collection

In much of Central America, religious
brotherhoods sponsor festival dances in
which elaborate costumes and masks
are used to tell traditional stories. For 25
years, Los Angeles business executives
Jim and Jeanne Pieper have been
photographing these festivals and

collecting examples of the masks and

costumes, and an exhibition of masks

and some costumes from Guatemala is

currently on display at Field Museum.

The masks range from 18th-century

pieces to the work of contemporary
carvers.

“Guatemalan Masks:

The Pieper Collection”

continues through

September 3.

Field Museum Presi-
2 dent Willard L. Boyd
discusses the
controversy over
repatriation of Native
American remains and
cultural objects.

Volunteers whose
dedication keeps the
Museum functioning
are honored witha
dinner and awards
ceremony.

The Museum as Muse:
How the Chi-Town
Puppet Theatre used
Field Museum’s
resources to inform
and inspire a new
touring production.

City and suburban kids
construct a mini-
exhibit on Africa, in
preparation for
becoming docents
when the Museum’s
permanent exhibit on
Africa and the diaspora
opens in 1993.

Conservator Cap Sease

T1 and archaeozoologist
David Reese recall
their recent visit to the
excavation of the
ancient holy city of
Nippur in Iraq.

$5 million grant supports

Fe ee ees |e A Se) Br hr
eld Museum of Natural |

An ‘extinct’ species is rediscovered,
singing, in a rain forest on Madagascar

By Thomas S. Schulenberg
Division of Birds

he bird’s song was loud,

loud enough to be heard

over the sounds of the

river below me, loud
enough to be heard over the
melodious calls of the large
black parrots in the forest
canopy. And the song was
vaguely familiar . . . but what it
reminded me of was a cardinal’s
song, and I knew of nothing in
the rain forests of southeastern
Madagascar that would sound
like a cardinal. Intrigued, I
pointed a long microphone at the
tree-tops, and recorded one of
the songs. Then I played it
back, hoping to elicit a territorial
response and entice the bird to
approach near enough for me to
see and identify it.

Almost immediately, a pair of
small drab birds appeared, cir-
cling at eye-level; one was
singing the cardinal-like song. I
could see them, all right, but I
still had no idea what I was
looking at. Before hurrying up
the trail, I recorded more songs
and dictated some notes onto the
tape. The birds were about the
size of the Common Newtonia, a
warbler found throughout Mada-

The Red-tailed Newtonia had been known only by this specimen in the Swedish Museum, collected in 1931.

gascar but nowhere else. I noted
the details of the plumage, and
added some concluding remarks:
These birds bore a remarkable
resemblance to the female
plumage of another small forest
bird, the Red-tailed Vanga: “. . .
over-all pattern somewhat like a
female Calicalicus [the vanga]
but . . . the eye-ring seemed nar-
rower and the bill was different,
long, thin, warbler-like, with a
pale mandible.”

Very peculiar birds, I
thought; although the colors

research fund

and new ‘Animal Kingdom’ exhibit

$5-million foundation

grant will launch the

next major phase in the

Museum’s permanent
exhibition plan and simultane-
ously provide a major endow-
ment fund to support research by
Museum scientists.

The grant, from the Daniel F.
and Ada L. Rice Foundation,
includes $1 million to be used
toward creation of an exhibit
complex entitled “Diversity and
Survival in the Animal King-
dom” that will be installed in the
new Rice Wing (the first-floor
west). The first phase of the
exhibit, covering birds and
mammals, is scheduled to open
in late 1991.

The exhibit funding is a
match for $1.2 million recently
awarded by the National Science
Foundation, and also serves as a
challenge grant for an additional
$2.5 million to be raised from
other sources within a year. The
NSF grant was the largest award
the agency has ever made for a
museum exhibition.

The remaining $4 million of
the Rice Foundation grant will
be invested in a permanent
endowment, the Daniel F. and

Classic dioramas like this one of the California condor will be

refurbished for installation in the new Animal Kingdom exhibit.

Ada L. Rice Fund, to support
research by Museum scientists.
“The Field Museum has
demonstrated bold leadership in
the design of its new exhibits,
and we hope those who share
our confidence in the Museum
will assist by participating in the

early expression of this trend-
setting educational revolution,”
said Arthur A. Nolan, Jr., presi-
dent of the Rice Foundation.
“Our endowment gift is
meant to further academic free-
dom in research, as well as to
help establish an inspirational

were not bright, the pattern was
distinctive, and I couldn’t under-
stand why I wasn’t able to put a
name on them. After all, how
many birds with red tails could
there be on Madagascar?

A short time later, up the
trail, I caught up with fellow
Field Museum biologist Steve
Goodman. Steve and I, together
with two Malagasy guides, were
scouting a trail that bordered the
northern edge of a government
forest reserve called Andoha-
Our day had begun at

hela.

museum experience
. that will attract and
educate museum vis-
Zo itors, old and new.”

of Willard L. Boyd,
president of the Museum,
said he was pleased that the
Rice Foundation grant addressed
some of the Museum’s most
important functions. “In a time
of world-wide concern about
preservation and extinction of
animal species and their habi-
tats, the Rice Foundation’s grant
enables the Museum to be at the
forefront of zoological and envi-
ronmental education and
research,” Boyd said.

In recognition of the grant,
the first-floor west wing will be
named the Daniel F. and Ada L.
Rice Wing. Within the wing, the
Museum will construct a flexi-
ble-use room, the Daniel F. and
Ada L. Rice Hall, that will func-
tion as an animal-study center
by day and as a space for public
receptions and special events in
the evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Rice lived at
Danada Farms in Wheaton, I[lli-
nois until his death in 1975 and
hers in 1977. Daniel Rice was a
successful businessman, known
as a daring grain speculator and

(Continued on Page 3)

dawn, at a small village along-
side a deeply rutted mud road
that passes for a highway. As
we began our hike the morning
sun just touched a small group
of trees outside the village. The
position of this grove, surround-
ed by denuded pasture, seemed
odd, but the stone monuments

(continued on page 10)

Arias to address
Founders’ Council

scar Arias Sanchez, former

president of Costa Rica and
Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will
receive the 1990 Field Museum
Founders’ Council Award of
Merit in October.

The award recognizes Dr.
Arias’s efforts on behalf of inter-
national peace and the conserva-
tion of natural resources. Field
Museum researchers have been
working in Costa Rica for half a
century, and in recent years have
collaborated with Costa Rican
scientists and government agen-
cies to help plan protected
reserves for wildlife.

As president, Dr. Arias creat-
ed a ministry of natural
resources, energy, and mines;
issued an emergency decree
restricting activities that con-
tribute to destruction of rain for-
est; increased the reforestation
program; and established a new
national park to protect and
expand tropical dry forests. A
university professor and author

(Continued on Page 3)

Photo: John Weinstein / Neg No. 293867

UPI/Bettmann Newsphotos

Both museums and Native
Americans hold cultural
material of prior
generations in trust for
future generations.

Editor’s note

ield Museum is at once one
IF of the world’s most impor-

tant research institutes and
graduate training centers in the
natural sciences, a public school
away from school, a college for
lifelong learning, a forum for
debate on biodiversity and mul-
ticulturalism, a place of public
entertainment, a Chicago land-
mark, and much more besides,
all of which we hope to commu-
nicate in the pages of this news-
paper.

It is called Jn the Field,
which provides a useful double
entendre, and its subtitle is “The
Bulletin of the Field Museum of
Natural History,” which signi-
fies that it continues not only
the library serial number but the
best traditions of that magazine,
carried on nobly here with such
work as Tom Schulenberg’s
lovely report on his and Steve
Goodman’s work in Madagas-
car. But we wanted our princi-
pal membership publication to
do a greater variety of work, and
so have adopted this newspaper

July/August 1990

Repatriation policy

Working together

for cultural understanding

By Willard L. Boyd

President, Field Museum

ongress 1s considering legislation that would require museums
C and other organizations receiving federal funds to return, upon
request, human remains, funerary objects, and objects consid-
ered to be the cultural patrimony of Native Americans. This issue is
one of the most important facing American museums today, and rep-
resents an opportunity for museums and descendants of cultures rep-
resented in their collections to work together to advance understand-
ing of our respective and mutual traditions.

At a series of meetings last year between representatives of muse-
ums and of the Native American community, | was impressed by the
concern of Native Americans about insensitive treatment by some
museums of their cultural heritage. I was also strengthened in my
conviction that generally museums have played, and must continue
to play, a major role in multicultural learning in a pluralistic society.
This is particularly true of the Field Museum of Nat-
ural History, which has had a tradition of working
with many cultural groups and always opening our
records and collection areas to descendants for study
and examination.

The Museum is pursuing two courses of action
with respect to our cultural collections. First, our
Board of Trustees has adopted a repatriation policy
recommended by the Collections and Research divi-
sion of the Museum. Second, the entire Museum is working affirma-
tively to develop exhibits and programs in consultation with the peo-
ples whose cultures are involved.

In meetings with Native Americans the view has been clearly
expressed that they have not fared well in federal tribunals and that a
local repatriation process would be preferable. At the Field Museum
we have developed a policy that provides such a local process. It pro-
vides for conciliation, impartial dispute resolution, and application of
Native American as well as other pertinent law.

The policy tries to balance Native American concerns with the
Museum’s three-fold concerns about collection, preseryation, and
scholarship; the legal responsibilities of the Trustees with respect to
the collections; and the scholarly and public need to understand the
sum as well as the parts of the human condition in an increasingly
interdependent world,

In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Indian
Affairs in May, I urged that state or federal legislation apply only
where there is no local museum policy. Furthermore, [ urged that
such legislation reflect both Native American and museum concerns.

Because the collections are central to the scientific and education-
al work of the Field Museum, and because the Museum holds these
collections in trust for the general public, our Board of Trustees rec-
ognizes that its highest and most demanding duty under Illinois law
is to maintain and preserve the collections and make them accessible.
Therefore, the Board has concluded that it should deaccession items
for repatriation only where there is a compelling contrary public pol-
icy that takes precedence over the Board’s fiduciary duty.

The Field Board believes such a compelling contrary public poli-

cy exists where culturally related descendant groups request repatri-
ation of ancestral human remains and associated grave objects for the
purpose of reconsecrating those remains and objects according to tra-
ditional practices, and we will honor such requests.

The Museum's policy also addresses sacred objects currently
needed for the practice of a Native American religion. The decision
to return sacred objects is based on a case-by-case analysis.

In responding to repatriation requests, the Museum opens its
records and storage space to the interested parties. If the Museum
and the Native American group cannot resolve issues concerning
human remains, associated grave objects, and sacred objects, the
Museum policy specifically provides that the Museum will submit
the disagreement to an impartial third party as authorized under IIli-
nois law, preserving to the parties the right to appeal to the state
courts for a final determination.

Currently, two Native Americans are working with the Anthropol-
ogy Department to ascertain the provenance of specific human
remains, grave objects, and sacred objects. Our collections include
1,200 human remains of Native Americans and approximately
100,000 ethnographic materials from about 100 groups in this coun-
try. We also have about 135,000 archaeological artifacts from every
state in the Union.

The Museum will continue its active effort to involve Native
American and other cultural groups in our planning processes.
Pawnees participated in the development of our Earth Lodge, North-
west Coast Indians in the creation of the Northwest Coast exhibit,
and Africans and African Americans are involved as we proceed to
develop our Africa exhibit.

Legally and philosophically, both museums and Native Americans
hold cultural material of prior generations in trust for future genera-
tions. As human institutions, museums certainly have their failings
as all humans do. Yet it is precisely because of their central mission
of collecting that they have preserved the cultural history of so many
people. Museums have made extraordinary contributions to our
understanding of each other. Walter Echo-Hawk, a lawyer for the
Native American Defense Fund, noted in a law-review article a few
years ago that the relationship between U.S. museums and Native
Americans has been “both beneficial and antagonistic” and has not
always been as productive as it could be. But, he pointed out, muse-
ums have served and can continue to serve as a bridge between cul-
tures — helping to preserve Native American culture during crisis
periods and helping all Americans to “understand, appreciate, and
respect past and present-day American Indians.”

Mr. Echo-Hawk concluded his article by saying, “The relationship
between museums and Indians has not always lived up to its fullest
potential.” At the Field Museum we believe it is essential that we
take this opportunity to assure that it does. What is involved here is
the enlightenment and understanding of millions of Americans who
come each year to museums to be educated and to learn about each
other. Native American materials and other collections in museums
provide the means of teaching today’s citizens about our past in ways
that benefit everyone.

That philosophy of mutual understanding is key to the mission of
the Field Museum.

format. In the Field is primarily
addressed to the Museum’s
24,000 members. We hope that
you will address us right back
(not all at once, please) and that
the paper can become a vehicle
for sharing our interests in the
Museum — in all its many roles major research endow-
and aspects. Letters may be A ment in honor of E.
addressed to /n the Field, Field Leland Webber, the late

Webber Research Endowment
is established with $250,000
Field Foundation grant

Museum of Natural History,
Roosevelt Rd, and Lake Shore
Dr., Chicago, IL 60605.

— Ron Dorfman

president and director of the
Museum, has been established
with a $250,000 grant from the
Field Foundation of Illinois.

This fund is to be aug-
mented by other gifts in
memory of “Lee” Web-
ber, who in 1962 was
appointed director of the
Field Museum and later
its president. Following

The Bulletin of the Field Museum of Natural History
July/August 1990 + Vol, 61, No, 4

Editor:
Ron Dorfman

Art Director:
Shi Yung

In the Field (ISSN #0741-2967) is published bimonthly by Field Museum of Natural History, Roosevelt Road
at Lake Shore Drive, Chicago IL 60605-2496, Copyright © 1990 Field Museum of Natural History. Librarians
please note: This serial is a continuation of Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin. Subscriptions $6.00
annually, $3.00 for schools. Museum membership includes /n the Field subscription. Opinions expressed by
authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect policy of Field Museum. Unsolicited manuscipts are wel-
come. Museum phone (312) 922-9410. Notification of address change should include address label and
should be sent to Membership Department. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to In the Field, Field
Museum of Natural History. Second class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois.

his retirement in 1981, he
remained an active
Trustee of the Museum
until his death on January
7, 1990.

The Field Foundation
of Illinois established the
E. Leland Webber Research
Fund to reward the Museum’s
most innovative scientists work-
ing to augment and interpret the
Museum’s vast collections.
Income from the Webber
Research Fund will become a
source of seed money for
exploratory projects in which a
curator addresses a new topic,
enters a different geographical
area for research, or experiments
with new techniques or analyses.

EF. Leland Webber

Webber Research grants will be
made available to Field Museum
scientists without regard to the
discipline in which each special-
izes and on a competitive basis.

Willard E. White, vice presi-
dent for development and exter-
nal affairs, said the new endow-
ment “is a major tribute to Lee
Webber’s memory and an inspi-
ration for us to pursue the very
best that’s possible in all areas of
research.”

Animal Kingdom

(Continued from page 1)

commodities trader. Ada Rice
was active in philanthropy and
was an avid painter and story-
teller. They shared a passion
forthoroughbred racing that pro-
duced a Kentucky Derby win-
ner, Lucky Debonair, in 1965.
The Foundation they established
now has assets of more than $80
million.

‘Churont © feed sek &. Foon Wing

cine arn eo conse mek
Drage ese

The Animal Kingdom exhibit
will incorporate existing Muse-
um specimens and dioramas
with new materials in an
innovative, multi-layered educa-
tional environment.

Diversity and Survival

The Nature Walk will offer an
introductory experience that one
of its developers describes as “a
hands-on, walk-through habitat
diorama.”

Appointments are announced
in botany and zoology

wo new curators and two

visiting curators have
recently joined the Museum
staff:

Thomas Lammers, a
botanist specializing in the
flowering plants of Hawaii, has
joined the Botany Department
as the new Assistant Curator of
Vascular Plants. He has been
teaching at Miami University of
Ohio since he received his doc-
torate from Ohio State Universi-
ty in 1988.

In the recently published
Flora of Hawaii, he contributed
a treatment of 110 species of
Lobeliads, and has been asked
to participate in the Flora of
Taiwan and Flora of Chile pro-
jects. His 1989 experience in
Chile follows an earlier expedi-
tion to the Juan Fernandez
Islands, and he will most likely
include the flowering plants of
tropical Latin America in his
future work.

Olivier C, Rieppel, the new
Curator of Paleontology, comes
to the Field Museum from the
Paleontological Institute of the
University of Zurich in Switzer-
land, At the Paleontological
Institute, he dealt with the origin
of snakes, the head anatomy of
reptiles, Middle Triassic verte-
brates, and systematic biology
in the literature of the French
Enlightenment.

Here at the Field Museum, he
will research embryonic and
postembryonic development in
fishes and marine reptiles and
will work with our extensive
fossil vertebrates collections.
He will utilize his systematics
background to work with Zoolo-
gy Department curators on dis-
cussions of evolutionary theory.

Winifred Creamer, Visiting

Assistant Curator of Anthropol-
ogy, is the director of the
Northern Rio Grande Research
Project on the impact of warfare
and disease on prehistoric pueb-
los and a specialist in the
archaeology of Mesoamerica
and the Southwestern U.S.

Visitors will journey

along a realistic nature trail that
leads them from the Chicago
area north to Alaska and south to
Brazil. Exhibit materials and
specimens will be placed both
behind glass and in the open,
where guided games, graphics,
computer programs, and things
to smell, touch, and hear will
help both children and adults
understand environmental
change and the impact that
human actions have on ecosys-
tems.

An exhibit on Mam-
mals of the Americas will
combine the Museum’s
extraordinary collection of
animal dioramas with
sounds, light, and habitat
elements. Visitors will be
introduced to the complex
associations of animals in
nature and the specific
solutions they have
evolyed in response to
environmental challenges.

The Animal Resource
Center will be the educa-
tional centerpiece of
“Diversity and Survival.”
It will combine compre-
hensive collections of bird
and mammal specimens
with a multimedia study
center where books, peri-
odicals, videotapes, activi-
ty kits, and other engaging
materials will help visitors
pursue their animal-relat-
ed interests in depth.

Robert Welsch, Visiting
Associate Curator of Anthropol-
ogy, specializes in medical
anthropology and patterns of
trade and manufacturing in tra-
ditional Melanesian and Indone-
sian societies. He has written
several grant proposals with
John Terrell, Curator of Oceanic
Archaeology and Ethnology, for
research on trade networks on
the North Coast of New Guinea,
two of which have been funded.

Changing of the guard:
Paula Trienens takes gavel
of Women’s Board

Diane Alexander White / FMNH 85520c.25

Mrs. James J. O’Connor (left), outgoing president of the Field Muse-
um Women’s Board, joined her successor, Mrs. Howard J. Trienens,
in greeting newscaster Bill Kurtis, who spoke at the Women’s Board
annual luncheon May 9. Kurtis narrated excerpts from his films on

science education.

Arias award

(Continued from page 1)

before entering government ser-
vice, Dr. Arias has degrees in
law and economics from the
University of Costa Rica and
advanced degrees, including the
Ph.D. in political science, from
the University of Essex in Eng-
land. He was also for a time a
pre-med student at Harvard.

He was elected president in
1986 as the candidate of the Lib-
eracién Nacional Party. Costa
Rican presidents may not suc-
ceed themselves in office.

The Norwegian Parliament
awarded him the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1987 for his work
toward ending regional conflicts

You could try to take it with you.

But why not consider a gift to future generations?
For information about long-range gift planning,
please call or write:

Melinda Pruett-Jones

Director of Major Gifts and Estate Planning

Field Museum of Natural History

Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive

Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496

(312) 322-8868

in Central America. The “Arias
plan” endorsed by the five
regional presidents led to the end
of the Nicaraguan civil war.
Costa Rica has had no army
since 1949.

The annual Founders’ Coun-
cil Award of Merit was estab-
lished in 1983. Among the
recipients have been Prince
Philip of Great Britain, president
of World Wildlife Fund Interna-
tional; Stephen Jay Gould, the
noted author and Harvard Uni-
versity paleozoologist; and Sir
David Attenborough, the zoolo-
gist and internationally known
documentary film maker.

Route 130 bus
service starts

After two years of planning
involving Field Museum and
other Grant Park institutions,
the Chicago Transit Authority
has begun service on the new
No.130 Grant Park Treasures
bus line.

The new line links the
Northwestern, Union, and
LaSalle Street Metra com-
muter stations to the Field
Museum, Soldier Field, Shedd
Aquarium, Adler Planetarium,
the Art Institute, Orchestra
Hall, downtown theatres and
other Grant Park attractions.

The route runs from Union
to Northwestern stations and
along Clinton, Jackson,
Michigan, Balbo, Columbus,
McFetridge, and Lake Shore
Drive, then back across Balbo,
Michigan, Adams, and Canal
to Union Station.

Service will run at 20-
minute intervals from 9:30
a.m. (10:30 a.m. on Sundays
and holidays) to 5:30 p.m.
daily until Labor Day. The
line will operate Saturdays
and Sundays throughout the
year and daily again during
the December holiday season.

July/August 1990

Return of the living cicadas

In tate May, when the cicadas crawled out of the earth for their 17-
year return engagement in northern Illinois, the Field Museum was
ready for them.

A new summer exhibit and video, “17-Year Cicadas of
Chicagoland,” sets the scene for these mysterious insects, millions of
which emerge every 17 years, mature, mate, propagate, and die —
all in the span of six weeks. Suburbanites — many of whom can’t
walk through their yards without crunching cicada shells and
citydwellers alike can examine the cicada’s habitat, mating habits
and life-cycle in a series of displays.

“Since recorded history Periodic Cicadas have appeared on
schedule every 17 years,” says John Wagner, biology subject matter
specialist at the Field Museum, who co-developed the exhibit with
entomologist Dan Summers. “These exotic insects surface for a
short period of time. leaving puzzled and intrigued humans in their
wake. We hope the exhibit at the Field Museum will answer many
questions.”

The exhibit opened May 16 and will close after September 1.

Earth Day is just an arbor day

Every day is an Earth Day for conservationists at the Field Museum,
but on Sunday, April 22, the Museum gave visitors their own “‘con-
servation contribution” to take home with them.

For the observance of the 20th anniversary of the first Earth Day,
every family visiting the Museum was offered a free Red Oak or
White Ash tree seedling to take home to plant in their own yards.
Written instructions for planting and nurturing the trees advised their
new owners of the environmental importance of trees.

Earth Day activity exhibits at the Museum helped children and
adults examine the fate of endangered animals and the medicinal and
nutritional benefits derived from certain plants. A special display
identified worldwide global conservation projects of the Field Muse-
um and another Earth Day booth encouraged visitors to sign pledge
cards of commitment to preserve the environment

Mommy, there’s an
elephant in my Seuss

The Museum Store has just stocked a new keepsake
and gift for anyone who reads: a Museum elephants
logo bookmark. It measures about two square inches
and works like a paper clip—with the elephant shapes
in front and the arched frame behind the page. It’s
made of solid brass and electroplated with gold, and
comes with information cards featuring the elephant as an
endangered species. Each bookmark costs $5.95.

It’s not Mott Street, but...

Visitors to Field Museum this summer have a wider choice of food
service with the addition of two pushcarts selling fresh fruit, sand-
wiches. muffins, and frozen fruit-juice bars. The pushcarts, with
their colorful umbrellas and awnings, are located on the ground floor
in Hall J opposite the “Inside Ancient Egypt” exhibit. They offer
four or five kinds of muffins and at least three kinds of sandwiches,
as well as apples, bananas, and oranges. Frozen juice bar flavors
include raspberry, strawberry, pineapple, lemon, and pina colada.

Hawaii calls ... or sends postcards

Five lucky winners have claimed the prizes — deluxe trips for two
to Hawaii — offered in the “Traveling the Pacific Sweepstakes” dur-
ing the Museum’s Pacific Festival in March. The four-day festival
featured traditional hula performances, a traveling exhibit recalling
World War II in the Pacific, and programs on Pacific culture.

There were 50,000 sweepstakes entries for the vacations spon-
sored by United Airlines, United Vacations, and Village Resorts. All
five winners live in Illinois: Dennis Weitzel Sr. of Ottawa; Drue
Ferguson of Oak Park; Frances Castro of South Holland; Vera
Gassner-Wollwage of Chicago; and Dennis Sparks of Champaign.

The postcard at right is from Clare Murray, one
of the three winners of Hawaii vacations
contributed by United during the
“Traveling the Pacific” exhibit’s
opening festivities for members
and donors last November. The
other winners were Ed Pope and
Emily Christian.

July/August 1990

GN81867

Kenyon Gallery.

Friends of the Field Museum Library

Jean Armour chairs the new Friends of the Field Museum
Library, which held its first members’ reception May 1.
Associate Librarian Ben Williams presented a program on
James Audubon’'s The Birds of America. (An Audubon
heron is shown at left.) The group will hold a fund-raising
benefit in September previewing an exhibit of original
Audubon paintings and drawings at the Douglas

Volunteers are
honored for service

Pictured at the volunteer
awards dinner are
William and Elva Duvall
(above) ; and Dr.
Theodore and Jessie
Sherrod. Mr. Duvall and
Mrs. Sherrod each con-
tributed more than 40
hours of volunteer ser-
vice in 1989.

useum volunteers were honored
with a recognition supper and
awards ceremony in Stanley
Field Hall on April 4. The
reception marked the twenty-
second year of the volunteer
program, which has grown from
30 volunteers in 1968 to more
than 350 volunteers today.

Volunteers were recognized
for their contributions to the sci-
entific, administrative, educa-
tive, and public areas of the
Museum. Carol Carlson, Coor-
dinator of Museum
Volunteers, noted
that the strong
teamwork of paid
and non-paid staff
has contributed
much to the Field
Museum’s world-
wide reputation for
achievement. And
Robert A. Pritzker,
chairman of the
Board of Trustees,
pointed out that the
volunteer program
is essential to both
the public and
research operations
of the Museum.

At the awards fk ~
ceremony, President
Willard L. Boyd announced that
in 1989, Field Museum volun-
teers donated 44,434 hours of
service — or the equivalent of
25 full-time paid staff members.

China Oughton, a volunteer
since June 1970 in the Depart-
ment of Geology, received the
1989 Searle Award for her 20
years of volunteer service. A
member of the Field Museum
Women’s Board, she has spent
her 1,989 hours of service cata-
loguing Mazon Creek fossils,
organizing the reprint library,
and helping with the renoyation
of the Gem Hall. She was out
of town for the ceremony, and
William Turnbull, Curator of
Fossil Mammals, accepted the
award, an engraved crystal box
from Tiffany’s, in her honor.

Boyd recognized six other
volunteers who have contributed
more than 20 years of service to
the Museum. In Education,
Beatrice Swartchild has donated
24 years of service; Anne Ross
has given 23 years; and Ellen
Hyndman, 22 years, In Inverte-
brates, Stanley Dvorak has vol-
unteered for 30 years and
Dorothy Karall for 24 years.
Mary Louise Roserithal has yol-
unteered in the Library for 21
years. All continue to be active
volunteers at the Museum.

Special recognition was also
given to the five weekday and
five weekend volunteers with
the greatest number of service
hours in 1989. The weekday

volunteers are: Llois Stein, with
669 hours in Anthropology;
John McConnell, with 621 hours
in Geology; Ingrid Fauci, with
591 hours and Sophie Ann
Brunner, with 579 hours, both in
the Amphibians andReptiles
Division of Zoology; and Mar-
garet Martling, with 565 hours
in Botany. The weekend volun-
teers include: Mary Nelson,
with 500 hours in Anthropology
and Education; Susan Knoll,
with 358 hours in the Mammals
Division of Zoology; and John
Nelson, with 264 hours, Jacque-
line Arnold, with 219 hours, and
Dennis Kinzig, with 204 hours,
all in Education,

An additional 241 volunteers
received mention for 40 or more
hours of service in 1989.

John Weinstein /GN85519

John Wagner

toryteller Algernon
Black’s reading of a
Native American folk
tale, collected on tape
with others from around the
world, had long intrigued
actor/puppeteer Scott Swenson.
The story told of a young boy
who nurses a wounded eagle
back to health and is later res-
cued by the eagle when his
canoe is caught in a rapids.

So when Swenson and his
colleagues in the Chi-Town Pup-
pet Theatre were looking for a
new project and decided, for a
variety of reasons, to do a
Native American story, the tale
of the boy and the eagle was a
natural candidate. But the story-
line needed fleshing out, and the
costuming, music, scenery, and
other theatrical elements had to
be thoroughly researched before
a show could be presented to
school audiences.

That’s where the Field Muse-
um’s Webber Resource Center
on Native American cultures
came in, with its wealth of
archival photographs, video-
tapes, books, teacher resources,
contemporary newspapers, etc.,
and the result — with additional
reference to contemporary
Native American artists, 11th-
century Japanese bunraku pup-

Eagle Feather (third from left) with humans Dan Copeland, Scott Swenson, and Luanne Lange Harkins. The
puppetry derives from Native American, Japanese, and Cubist sources.

petry, and Cubist esthetics — is
on view in the company’s new
touring production, Eagle
Feather.

Inspiration from Webber

Artistic Director Hugh Man-
ning spent considerable time in
the Museum, and Swenson made
separate visits. “The Webber
was a strong source of inspira-
tion for the actual look of the
show,” Swenson says. “I also
was able to listen to music in the
tape library, and one in particu-
lar, which has both folklore and

music performed by Native
Americans, was really helpful in
setting the mood in my mind.”

Manning adds that many spe-
cific details of the production —
the basic symbolism of Father
Sky and Mother Earth, a recur-
ting wave pattern that simulates
the river, the men’s fringed
trousers, the old chief’s blanket,
the wire puppets used in a dream
sequence — “are all from
sketches we made of stuff in the
Webber.”

Chi-Town Puppet Theatre
was selected to represent Illinois

Schoolteacher Rona Lerner:

‘The Field Museum taught me

how to take chances. . .’

omparing ancient
Egyptian and pre-
Columbian Central
American cultures...
incubating and candling chicken
eggs ... using a flower press to
preserve botanical specimens
and create images on photo-sen-
sitive paper... just three of
many projects that students at
Chicago’s Kosciuszko Elemen-
tary School did this past year as
a result of teacher Rona Lerner’s
summer vacation.
“T spent almost
the entire summer
at the Field
Museum last
year,” she says.
“1 took the two-
week STICI
course [on how
teachers can use
museums] and a
lot of one-day
teacher work-
shops — on
botany, the rain
forest, ecology,
Indians of the

Midwest, and
other topics.”
STICI is the

Summer Teacher
Internship in a
Cultural Institu-

tion, which
acquaints educa-
tors with the

resources of
Chicago’s many
museums and
explores “the

hows and whys of classroom
field trips.”

Lerner teaches math, science, }

and English as a second lan-
guage at Kosciuszko, which has

a large Hispanic population. &

“So many of our children are
from Mexican Indian back-

grounds and they have very little §

knowledge about their back-

ground or pride in their back- §

ground,” she says. “So since the
Museum has some interestin
g

exhibits about the Aztecs and &

Incas and other Central Ameri-
can peoples, I constructed a trip
so the kids could compare the
ancient Egyptian culture to Cen-
tral American cultures. Even
though people don’t go ‘Wow!’
about the Aztecs and Incas and
Mayas, they had fully as much
‘civilization’ as the Egyptians
and were just as wonderfully
creative.”

For their part, she adds, the
fifth- through eighth-graders
involved “worked their little
fannies off and loved it.” Lerner
spent three months preparing the
project — “planning, making the
questions, bringing in other
resources like the Harris
Library,” Field Museum’s lend-
ing library of mini-exhibits and
experience boxes.

The kids also taught her a
few things. In the incubation
project, the eggs are “candled”
using a bright light, so the chil-
dren can see from day to day
how the embryos are growing.
Some of the children had can-

in the International Puppet Festi-
val held this year in Abakan,
U.S.S.R. The company is on the
roster of the Illinois Arts Coun-
cil’s Artstour 1990-92, which
provides grants to schools and
non-profit organizations to sup-
port performances, workshops,
residencies, and lecture-demon-
strations. Information on Arts-
tour grants is available from the
Council at (312) 814-6750. Per-
formances of Eagle Feather and
other Chi-Town productions can
be arranged by calling Manning
at (312) 549-3859.

ee |

Children's
summer
workshops

QO. summer days at the
Museum, children are mysteri-
ously transformed— into
shapes and costumes of
Japanese masks, African mud
painting shirts, dinosaur and
whale puppets, even mummy
necklaces and amulets.

In July and August, natural
history workshops will be
offered Saturdays through
Tuesdays for children ages 4
through 14 to explore crea-
tures, cultures, and folk char-
acters. Additional Adult-Child
Workshops permit adults to
participate in the learning
experience, too.

The workshops are con-
ducted at varying levels for
children of different ages. Our
youngest visitors, ages 4 years
to kindergarten, can become
“rock hounds,” measure a
whale skeleton, or make
Native American masks and
dinosaur puppets, while the
kindergarten through 2nd
graders create miniature erupt-
ing volcanoes, learn the Chi-
nese Ribbon Dance, or make a
Japanese folk toy to keep the
rain away.

For schedule and fee infor-
mation, call (312) 322-8854
between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00
p-m. weekdays or call week-
ends for a recorded message.

HELD MUSEUM

THE SMART WAY IO HAVE FUN.

dled eggs in their native Mexico,

and “they struggled to learn the
English words because they
were so eager to tell me how
they got up before dawn and
held the eggs up to the rising sun
to tell if they’re fertilized.”
That’s a much more effective
way to learn English than is pro-
vided by the snooze-inducing
ESL textbook, she notes.

“The Field Museum taught
me how to take chances on this
kind of hands-on stuff,’ Lerner
says. “Looking at chicks hatch-
ing in the Lincoln Park Zoo is
not the same as holding the egg
in your hand and feeling the
warmth and holding it up to the
light and seeing the head and the
eyes getting bigger. Which
would you rather learn from?”

This year’s STICI course for
elementary school teachers runs
from July 9 to July 20 and costs
$25. Some support is available
to pay for a bus for a fall field
trip for class participants, and
Chicago public school teachers

may be eligible for Lane III pro-
motional credit.

In addition, there will be one-
day workshops at a variety of
grade levels in subjects that
include Kwanzaa _ traditions,
dinosaur basics, Native Ameri-
can homes, Traveling the Pacif-
ic, African symbology, animal
stories, Chicago-area Native
Americans, biological classifica-
tion, environmental education,
plate tectonics, and Japanese
culture. All workshops are $10
except the three-day archaeolo-
gy class, which includes a one-
day field trip to a local excava-
tion site ($25), and “The Plant
Image: Science and Art Cross-
fertilize” ($15).

July/August 1990

ER ¥ measure the distance from Chicago to
} Hawaii with their feet. From the Tahi- MUSH!
1 tian market, they travel through Eleven intrepid trekkers take off from O'Hare for
7 Dinosaur Hall, collecting facts about Anchorage to begin a 16-day four of Alaska with
for a free child’s admission to the Field Muse- +, mammoth skeletons and dinosaur David L. Willard, collection manager in the Divi-
um when accompanied by a paying adult. All yy weights and measurements. Next, sion of Birds. Itinerary includes the Kenai Penin-
visiting children will be greeted with a new 0 GY eQaye they walk through the Earth Sciences, sula, Denali National Park, the Sagavanirktok
Field Adventure game inviting them and their f Tibet, Stanley Field, and Mammals of River Wildlife Refuge, and Prudhoe Bay.
families to explore and search for fun facts about Asia Halls and take a close look at the
animals and nature in Museum exhibits. A color- Tans Axis deer. The map trail and the Field
ful map and game sheet plot a trail, beginning at 7 Adventure game ends with a riddle to
the “Traveling the Pacific” exhibit, where children can ~*” solve in the Mammals of Asia Hall.

8 BEASTS

July 8 is the last day to
view “Bestiarium,” a
striking exhibit of 50
black-and-white photos
by Mexican photographer
Flor Garduno, which
have been on display
since April 6. In this ce ee

photo, entitled “Totem

Ocotlan,” and in the others, Gardufio captures the traditions of her native
Mexico, especially the belief that every human being is born with an ani-
mal as a spiritual twin who influences character and destiny. Indigenous
poetry and legends accompany the photos. “Bestiarium” is located in the
gallery of the Webber Resource Center.

nee SE eee
The Museum belongs to the people. 2 { Sleep over with the Cheyenne July 28 to 29 in the Plains Indi-

1 HAPPY MEALS FEST BEGINS f

bane
This summer, nearly a million McDonald’s Happy
Meals in the Chicago area will feature a coupon ~

FMNH 93425

But do vou belong to the M m? an Hall on the Field Museum’s Family Overnight program.
y g to the Museu Children in grades 1 through 5 and their families can explore a

South Pacific island or visit the dinosaurs at 2:00 a.m. A mid-

Benefits of membership include free admission, coat checking, and strollers, night-snack, latéimovie, and wake-up breakfast are provided

The Family Field Trip bus leaves the

invitations to special events and exhibit previews, a subscription to In the Moseunrat seep jobniwaroet Sleeping is dormitory style in carpeted Museum halls and fami-
Field, mummy and dinosaur birthday parties for the kids, discounts in the Biolosy speciahstmcthe Muneunes Fdu- lies bring their own sleeping bags and pillows. The Overnight
Museum stores and on classes, field trips and seminars, and much more— ation Department, in charge. Learn to begins at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and concludes at 9:00 a.m.
not least the opportunity to support one of the great museums of the world. serve and collect insects in ponds, Sunday. The cost of $30 for adults and $20 for children 16
a4 forests, fields, and prairies. For adults and under includes all food and activities.
os with children grades 3 - 8. Fees are $20
SIGN ME UP for adults and $18 for kids under 16.

(1 Individual -one year $30.00 (1) Family -one year $35.00

[_J Individual -two years $55.00 [LJ Family -two years $65.00
(Family membership includes two adults, children 18 and
under or grandchildren 18 and under)

[_] Please send me information on the Museum’s support groups.
New Members only. This is not a renewal form.

Name

Address

City

State Zip

Home phone _________ Business phone

22 WEST PACIFIC FLUTES

July and August bring to the Field Museum the beat of African
drums, the melodies of Japanese and Australian flutes, the wail of
the saxophone and blues harmonica, and the rhythms of traditional
South American folk music.

The World Music Program features the African percussion of Eli
Hoenai on June 30 and July 1; the saxophone of Ari Brown July 14
and 15; the Japanese and Australian flutes of Douglas Ewart on July
21 and 22; and Shanta’s African folktales and music July 28 and 29.

Chicago Beaux will kick off August with a blues harmonica per-
formance on August 4 and 5, followed by Manu Walter’s Africa per-
cussion August 11 and 12. On August 18 and 19, the program fea-
tures the folk music of South
America’s Raices del Andes, and
Eli Hoenai will finish off the last
weekend in August with his
African percussion.

All performances are at 1:00
p.m. The World Music Program CLOTH & CLAY
is supported by the Kenneth and Members of the Founders’
Harle Montgomery Fund and a Council and other invited

Chicago City Arts grant. guests will learn about South-
east Asian textiles and ceram-

ics at a lecture by Patricia
Cheesman, internationally
known author and lecturer at
Chiang Mai University in Thai-
land. (7:00 p.m. in the
Founders’ Room.)

July/August 1990

|

n © TELLERS OF TALES

Join Tejumola Ologboni, master storyteller of African and
African American folklore, for an evening of ancient legends
and exotic tales at the Field Museum. Children and adults alike
can imagine themselves in ancient Egypt with stories from
Nancy Donoval of Wild Onion Storytelling Guild and learn
Pawnee folk legends from John White, storyteller and project
director of Field Museum’s Pawnee Earth Lodge. Alice Rubio of

—_ INTO THE WOODS Chicago Storytelling Guild will tell tales of Chicago. The pro-
Explore “things that go bump in the gram begins at 7:00 p.m.; tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for

night” as naturalist Lynn Hepler leads a children 16 and under.
Family Field Trip Night Hike through
the woods by moonlight. Children in

grades 3

through 8

accompanied

by an adult

learn how

night animals

adapt to the

darkness,

and watch,

listen, and =

smell for ee rd

owls, s hf

night = © ANCHORS AWEIGH

hawks, Board the luxury yacht Anita Dee II at Navy Pier fora
deer, fox, romantic dinner-dance on Lake Michigan. The $100-per-
and person event is sponsored by the Museum’s Public Pro-
other grams Support Group to benefit the Community Outreach
nocturnal Program, Cocktails at

creatures. 6:00, buffet dinner at

The bus departs at 7:30, and dancing ‘til

6:15 p.m. for Ryerson Conservation 11:00 p.m. to the Sesbloy

Area. Registration fees are $20 for ' = eee Paul Orchestra. Call

adults and $18 for children 16 and Pe eR Madelyn Thompson at

under. 322-8858,

1 w DON'T BE LEFT AT THE ALTAR

Find out what the bride and groom do instead of kissing at the end
of a traditional Korean wedding ceremony before the “Something
Old, Something New... Ethnic Weddings in America” exhibit closes
today. These 80 black-and-white photographs by Katrina Thomas
detail cultural wedding traditions from all over the world, many of
which are still practiced in ethnic communities in the U.S.

Night hike

w TURKEY DAY
Last day to sign up for two-week tour of

Turkey, October 19-November 3. $500
deposit due today.

Pe

Bike & hike

New England

Sept. 23-30, 1990

TURKEY
Oct. 19-Nov. 3, 1990

For two weeks in October,
members can explore seven
thousand years of human histo-
ry in Turkey, the cultural bridge
between Europe and Asia. Ms.
Nulifer Iris, a graduate of the
American College in Istanbul
and an experienced NATO and
American Embassy tour guide,
will lead the expedition along
with a representative of the
Field Museum.

The group flies to Istanbul,
where they will stay for the first
three and last two days of the
tour. The expedition takes par-
ticipants through the modern
city of Ankara, the rock forma-
tions of the Cappadocia region,
the ancient monuments at Izmir
or Ephesus, the petrified cas-
cade of Pamukkale and the city
of Antalya on the Turkish Riy-
iera,

Excursion highlights
include: Ottoman,
Byzantine, and
Hittite art tours;
lectures on
Turkish tex-
tiles, rugs
and ancient
costumes
from experts
at Istanbul Uni-
versity; a cruise
through the Bospho- “i
rus, the gateway from the
Mediterranean to the Black Sea;
visits to the Beylerbeyi and
Topkapi palaces and private
Sadberk Hanim Museum; a day
in Aphrodisias with Dr. Kenan
Erim, Professor of Archaeology
at New York University and
Princeton; and expeditions to
the Greco-Roman sites of the

' . ’

Odeon, the Agora, Cleopatra
and Mark Antony’s Arcadian
Way, the Temple of Hadrian,
and the ruins of the Temple of
Diana, one of the Seven Won-
ders of the Ancient World.

This tour, from October 19 to
November 3, 1990 costs $3,775,
including airfare from Chicago.
A $500 deposit is required by
August 19, 1990.

View of Keene Valley from the home of Dr. & Mrs. Wesley Lanyon, where the tour group will stop for

cocktails. At far right is Mt. Marcy, the highest peak in New York State.

Scott Lanyon, head of the Divi-
sion of Birds and Associate
Curator, will lead a tour group
on a week of biking and hiking
through New England’s autumn
countryside.

The group will fly into
Burlington, Vermont and stay
for three nights at Middlebury’s
Swift House Inn, built and
inhabited by Samuel Swift in
1814. Three biking options with
different paces will be offered
each day, and members can
explore historic Middlebury on

November 7-24, 1990

In November, which is
summer south of the
equator, the Museum
offers an exploration
of the marine life of
the Great Barrier
Reef, the largest coral
reef system on earth. Dr.

Harold K. Voris, Curator in #2

the Zoology Department

and former Vice-President...
of Collections and Research, ~
will lecture on the marine ecosystems and Abo-
riginal cultures of Southeast Asia and take partic-

ipants snorkeling in the Reef.

The group will fly from Los Angeles to

their own.

After a ferry ride across Lake
Champlain to Fort Ticonderoga
for a tour and picnic lunch, the
group will take a van-shuttle to a
cocktail party at the Keene Val-
ley home of Dr. and Mrs. Wes-
ley Lanyon, parents of Scott
Lanyon. Next, from Mirror
Lake Inn in Lake Placid, Scott
Lanyon will lead four days of
birding, hiking, and mountain
climbing expeditions. Canoe-
ing, fishing, cycling, horseback
riding, carriage rides around

Mirror Lake, and Olympic Vil-
lage tours are also available.
Twenty is the maximum
group size for the expedition,
scheduled for September 23 to
30, 1990. Co-sponsored by the
Field Museum and the Universi-
ty of Chicago Alumni Associa-
tion, the trip will be operated by
Vermont Country Cyclers. The
price of $1,725 includes air fare,
reservations, most meals, and a
bike, plus orientation and van
support. A $250 deposit is
required to hold a reservation.

the staging area for the Battle of the Coral Sea at
the Whitsunday Islands, before exploring Syd-
ae ney’s Opera House, the natural history museum,
: # and the Royal Botanic Garden. The last stop of

the trip is a tour of historic Tas-
manian villages and caves.
This two-week excur-
sion, from November 7 to
24, 1990, costs from
$5,940 to $8,980 per
person. Internation-
al air add-on from
‘yy Los Angeles is
", $1,400 and domes-
tic airfare is addi-
tional. A deposit of

$1,000 per person is
“g@ required.

Scott Lanyon

Guam, where they board the World Discoverer to
cruise the Coral Sea. Day excursions will pro-
vide opportunities to spot monitor lizards on
Lizard Island, rare birds and tree kangaroos at
Cairns, dingoes, wallabies and “brumbies” on the
sand on Fraser Island, and wombats, emus and
koalas along the Clarence River. The group will
also see ancient Aboriginal rock paintings and

ADDITIONAL TOURS

Crow Canyon Archaeological Center

An archaeological dig at Crow Canyon in the San Juan
River country (east of the Grand Canyon) is offered September
16 to 23, 1990. Participants will help uncover ancient artifacts
of the Anasazi people who lived in the area for 2,000 years,
hike through the Mesa Verde region, and visit cliff dwellings
and the Hovensweep National Monument. The cost is $1,225
per person.

Egypt and the Nile by Yacht

An 11-night Nile cruise aboard a chartered 58-passenger
yacht is scheduled for February 25 to March 17, 1991. An
Egyptologist from the United States will accompany the excur-
sion, Call Dorothy Roder in the Field Museum tours office for
details: (312) 322-8862.

Children of the Holocaust
share their memories of exhibit

he exhibit “Remember
the Children,” which
closed May 28 after an
extended run of four months,
left both visitors and volunteer
docents alike with vivid and
sometimes disturbing memories.

The exhibit told the story of
the Holocaust from the perspec-
tive of the 1.5 million children
killed by the Nazis between
1933 and 1945, and made the
connection between that geno-
cide and other forms of racial,
ethnic, and intergroup hatred.
Many of the volunteers were
integral parts of the exhibit
itself, as they were “Eyewitness-
es” — survivors of the Holo-
caust telling their own stories
and answering visitors’ ques-
tions about the historical events
and their meaning today.

For a memory book after the
exhibit closed, volunteer Tirza
Kahan recalled a hearing-
impaired group that came to
visit “and were shocked when
they realized that they too
would have been killed.”
Indeed, the first Nazi extermina-
tion program did not focus on
Jews but rather on retarded,
mentally ill, and physically
handicapped people.

Field Museum Education
Department chair Carolyn
Blackmon notes that this exhib-
it was the first of “a series on
people's pain,” and that later
exhibits will examine the expe-
riences of Native Americans,
African Americans, and other
groups. The program aims to
provide a multicultural context
for the experience of group vic-
timization.

As part of the “Remember
the Children” exhibit, visitors
were asked to contribute their
comments in a blank-page
binder and children were invited
to draw their impressions on
cardboard tiles. As shown by
the tiles illustrated here, there
was remarkable sensitivity, and
some surprising sophistication,

as in the text of a tile drawn by
Alessandra Kelley, otherwise
unidentified:

“T will give you this cool uni-
form and let you march in my
parade and wave this neat flag . . .
all you have to do is hate a few
people.”

Ursula Jacobius, one of the
Eyewitnesses, asked an elderly
couple if they had any ques-
tions. “The man shook his head
and walked away,” she wrote in
the memory book. “His wife
told me that her husband was
the first doctor with the Ameri-
can Army to enter a concentra-
tion camp, and he never talked
about his experience, He stood
at the exit of the exhibit and
cried. At that moment, I felt
like crying too.”

Before the exhibit opened,
the Eyewitnesses took two days
of training in intergroup rela-
tions techniques and did role-
playing to learn how to deal
with potential conflict from
“skinhead types,” according to
the trainer, Marcia Lazar of
Intergroup Associates. But
there were very few incidents of
hostility.

Many school groups from
throughout the state

Starting this year, all \,
public schools in Tli- &
nois are required to }
include a unit on the y
Holocaust in social stud- \;
ies or history courses.
In the volunteers’
memory book, Ida Kersz
thanked the Museum staff 4
for giving her the opportu- \
nity to share her childhood
experiences with so many
people: “I don’t have all the
answers,” she wrote, “but I
surely can tell you that there
were ‘righteous Gentiles’ such
as my Polish mother, Mrs, Jose-
fa Maj, who endangered herself
and gave refuge to a Jewish
orphan. . . . Most of the visitors
were stunned by my story. It

toured the exhibit .—

Schoolchildren help develop
major Field Museum exhibit on Africa

onawetish Fields, a sixth-
K grader at the Walter Dyett

Middle School on Chica-
go’s South Side, has learned a
lot about Africa as a participant
in the development of the Muse-
um’s major new permanent
exhibit on Africa that will open
in 1993, But just as important,
she’s learned a lot about other
people and places a lot closer
than Timbuktu.

People like Cristy Baci-
galupo, a sixth-grader at the
Washburne school in north sub-
urban Winnetka who is Kon-
awetish’s partner in the Africa
Project’s “Learning About Peo-
ple and Museums” program.
And Cristy, for her part, thinks
that the best thing about the pro-
eram has been getting to know
Konawetish,

But Konawetish allowed as
how it had also been interesting
to learn that there are “birds that
peck holes in cactuses, that only
30 percent of the desert is blow-
ing sand, that the desert has ani-
mals you can’t imagine — not
just camels but kangaroo rats
and turtles. ...”

The two schoolgirls are
among 30 sixth-graders now in
the second year of the program.
They Il continue working with
the Museum staff people devel-
oping the Africa exhibit and
when it opens they'll be tenth-
graders and will function as
docents and exhibit guides for
both school groups and adults.

This year the students

addressed some of the major
myths and misconceptions about
Africa that they and other pro-
ject staff had found prevalent

Calvin Gray, assistant developer for the Africa project, works with

students in a game of “rafa-rafa,” which explores differences in cul-
ture. Karen Hutt, project coordinator, is at right rear.

among people they interviewed
— that Africa is one big jungle .
.. that Africans all live in grass
huts in rural areas ... that
Africa has no history worth
knowing... .. that Africans have
no real religion. The product of
their research is a four-part
mini-exhibit, “Dispelling
Stereotypes,” that was installed
in the West Door Entrance June
[be

Especially helpful has been
the students’ access to Dr. Toni
Milewski, a zoologist-ecologist
who specializes in African
wildlife and has been a rancher
in Kenya. He joined the Africa
project last year and has been
named a research associate in
the division of mammals.

The students spend one day a
month at the Museum during the
school year. They get to talk to
and work with Museum profes-
sionals in many fields — indeed,
they pretty much have the run of
the Museum’s “backstage” areas
— and so are exposed in a vivid
way to a wide range of interest-

Konawetish Fields (left) and Bianca Thompson display a section of the

“Hot Highway” diorama about the Great African Rift.

was very painful for me to
talk, as I believe the same was
for the others. But it also gave
me great satisfaction that many
of the visitors received my story
with warm reaction and intelli-

gent
questions, especially

the children who came and
hugged me. That was the
biggest reward for me!”

Douglas Grew / BW78515

ing occupations they might not
otherwise have known about,
whether they live in Woodlawn
or Winnetka.

What the students and their
teachers learn at the Museum
also goes back with them to
their schools. Mardee Costa, a
teacher at Greeley Elementary
School in Winnetka, says the
curriculum there includes units
on Africa and that her participa-
tion in the project “will be of
help to all the students I teach,
and so it will have a long-term
impact.”

The Africa exhibit is being
developed in other innovative
ways in addition to the student
participation. Project Coordina-
tor Karen Hutt and her associ-
ates have conducted a series of
public forums to ascertain what
the public would like to see in
the exhibit (which will include a
section on the African diaspora
in the Americas).

Cooperative arrangements
are being worked out with the
DuSable Museum of African
American History and with two
museums in Africa. Expert
input has been obtained from a
series of scholarly roundtables
and meetings with returned
Peace Corps volunteers.
African nationals living and
working in the Chicago area are
featured on the project’s weekly
phone-in cable television show
(Africable, 6 p.m. Wednesdays
on Channel 21), co-hosted by
Hutt and Musifiky Mwanasali, a
Field Museum research assistant
who is a native of Zaire. And

WTTW-TYV, the Chicago public-
television station, has been doc-
umenting the entire process.

July/August 1990

78515

Douglas Grew / BW

Newtonta

(continued from page |)

below the trees indicated that the
village’s dead were buried there,
and the grove was doubtless left
untouched because it was
regarded as sacred.

Tt was obvious that forests in
general enjoyed no such protec-
tion. After leaving the village
Steve and I had walked for
hours past farm plots, only occa-
sionally encountering a few
remnant fragments of the forest.
The border of the Andohahela
reserve was clearly visible long
before we arrived: In a remark-
ably abrupt transition, bare dirt
and hot sun gave way to the cool
shade of tall forest. This reserve
had been established by the for-
mer colonial power, the French,
in 1939. As is the case with
most of Madagascar, however, it
remained almost totally
unknown biologically. Even the
exact boundaries of the reserve
had become the subject of
debate. The tendency of vil-
lagers to encroach upon the
reserve’s forest, in a continual
search for new farmland, only
added to the uncertainty.

Inside the forest Steve and I
at first were almost over-
whelmed by the diversity of bird
life. We soon became separated
on the trail; when I rejoined
Steve, I found that he had seen
nothing like my red-tailed bird,
and had no better idea than I of
what it might be. Several hun-
dred yards up the trail, I was
surprised by the same cardinal-
like song, and once again I taped
it. By now I was convinced
we'd found something that
would prove very interesting,
and I wanted to be sure that this
recording was the best that my
portable equipment could pro-
duce.

I tried to stand very still and
follow the bird carefully with
the microphone, but it was diffi-
cult to concentrate after I
became aware that several
leeches were crawling up my
legs. Brushing them away as
quickly as possible, once again I
played back my tape recording.
and once again a bird responded
by approaching to ward off its
“rival.” Steve would now be
able to corroborate my descrip-
tion of this bird, whatever it
turned out to be.

I had been in Madagascar for
about two months at that point,
and Steve for a few weeks. We
were involved in a collaborative
survey of the vertebrates of
southeastern Madagascar.
While other biologists, from a
variety of institutions, surveyed
the reptiles, amphibians, and
mammals of this region, Steve
and I were responsible for the
birds. Both of us had previously
performed similar surveys in
other tropical countries, but nei-
ther of us had ever been to
Madagascar. And for a field

biologist, even one used to
working in exotic locations,
Madagascar ranks as one of the
most fascinating areas in the
world.

Splendid isolation

“Splendid isolation” is a phrase
that evolutionary biologist
George Gaylord Simpson coined
to describe the history of mam-
mals in South America during
the geological periods before
Panama drifted along, when
South America was essentially a
huge island. But Madagascar is
at least as deserving of this
description. It has been isolated
since it was ripped from the east
coast of Africa about 130 mil-
lion years ago. The ancestors of
any living plant or animal on
Madagascar either rode out to
sea with the island as it began its
separate journey, or they some-
how crossed hundreds of miles
of ocean to get there; and once
on Madagascar, there was no
going back.

Most species now found on
Madagascar are found nowhere
else on earth. Isolation allowed
some evolutionary lines to sur-
vive long after they died out on
the mainland. Such is the case
with Madagascar’s only native

primates, the lemurs. The clos-
est living relatives of lemurs on
the African continent are a few
small, mostly nocturnal species;
monkeys and other more famil-
iar primates dominate the scene
there. But in Madagascar, which
has been isolated since before
the ancestors to monkeys
branched off the evolutionary
tree, lemurs became the domi-
nant mammals. There devel-
oped an amazing array of
lemurs. from tiny mouse-lemurs,
which weigh less than some
chipmunks, through dog-sized
lemurs to a now-extinct giant
that was the size of a small bear.

Even lineages that may thrive
elsewhere nonetheless show
unexpected evolutionary poten-
tial when given the chance to
develop in a novel environment.
Somewhere in the distant past,
for example, at least one species
of bush-shrike managed to
establish a toe-hold on Madagas-
car. On the mainland, these
birds are more or less like any
other shrike. They are more
brightly colored than our gray
North American shrikes, but we
expect a little color in our tropi-
cal birds; in terms of shape, a
bush-shrike is just a shrike. But
in Madagascar! In an environ-
ment with relatively few other
bird species, these bush-shrikes
were given the chance to occupy
ecological roles that were closed
to them on the mainland, and

they took full
advantage of it:
Today the
descendants of
that original
colonist include
a bird that pass-
es well as a
nuthatch, anoth-
er with a bizarre
razor-like bill
like a small tou-
can, and yet
another species
with a yery
unshrike-like
scimitar bill.

There is no
evidence of
human occupa-
tion on the
island until
around 1,500 years ago. This is
truly remarkable when one
remembers that Madagascar is
the world’s fourth-largest island.
Even more remarkable is that
Madagascar was primarily colo-
nized, not by people from the
adjacent continent of Africa, but
by people of Indonesian origin.
This is surely one of the most
extraordinary migrations in
human history.

The original colonists found
an island whose eastern slopes
— the face of the island exposed
to the monsoons of the Indian
Ocean — were dominated by
lush rain forest; farther to the
west, the island gradually

Pe Sr |]

“It was difficult to concentrate _
after | became aware that several
leeches were crawling up my legs.”

James Ryan

became more arid, giving way in
the west to a mosaic of savannah
and deciduous woodland or, in
the southwestern corner of the
island, a desert dominated by
bizarre spiny plants.

Today, however, less than a
third of Madagascar’s rain forest
is intact, and what ‘remains is
quickly disappearing. The
rapidly expanding human popu-
lation clears forest to plant
crops, and to gather wood for
construction and for fuel. In the
clearings, rain leaches important
nutrients out of the soil. Indeed,
in many parts of Madagascar,
rains are simply washing away
the soil: The landscape is so
degraded that not enough plants
can grow to keep the soil in
place. Most of Madagascar’s
thousands of unique plant and
animal species are increasingly
susceptible to extinction. Biolo-
gists wish to learn as much as
possible about these species,
with the hope that enough can be
learned to save these fragile
communities, or at least to begin
to understand them before they
disappear.

Much clearly remains to be
learned. Most of what is known
about the birds of Madagascar,
for example, was learned 60
years ago, during an epic two-
year (1929-1931) collaborative
field expedition sponsored by
the American Museum of Natu-
ral History, the British Museum
of Natural History, and the
Muséum National d’Historie
Naturelle (Paris). Austin L.

Rand, who later became a cura-
tor of birds at the Field Museum,
first made his mark as an
ornithologist during this expedi-
tion. His lengthy monograph on
the birds of Madagascar contains
a wealth of detailed observation
on the biology of birds, their
behavior, nests, and diet. It
remains the starting point for
any study of the birds of the
island.

In all too many cases, unfor-
tunately, it remains the end point
as well. Although a few areas
had been repeatedly visited by
biologists, much of the island
was no better known biological-
ly in 1989 than it was in 1929.

The mystery solved

Steve and I were working at the
southeastern tip of Madagascar,
an area that was scarcely known
at all. (Most of the few observa-
tions of birds in the area were
made by a French adventurer
who spent seyeral months there
in 1756.) On our three-day
scouting trip in Andohahela, our
task was simply to get a general
feel for the forest and to locate
sites on the steep forested slopes
where it would be possible to
erect a small field camp. I was to
return to Chicago, and Steve
would later revisit this trail with
the other biologists in our party.
Although there would be
plenty of time later to study the
birds in this forest, we were
finding it increasingly hard not
to pay attention whenever we
noticed a flock in the canopy or
a sound in the undergrowth.
Clearly, this previously
unknown forest was a very rich
one. One after another we iden-
tified species that were regarded
as rare and had not been record-
ed within hundreds of miles of
Andohahela. This was good
news. With so many forests in
Madagascar disappearing, the
more locations at which a rare
species was found, the better its
long-term chances of survival.
But I couldn’t completely put
out of my mind the newtonia-
sized bird with the red tail... .
And somewhere along the
trail I made the connection.
Hadn’t I read a passing reference
to something called the Red-
tailed Newtonia? I tried hard to
drag this snippet of information
out of my memory, but all I
could come up with was the
name, and a vague recollection
that this bird was so poorly
known its very existence was in
doubt. I asked Steve about it,

(Continued on page 11)

Steve Goodman examines birds caught with a mistnet in
Madagascar. Many rare species were encountered during the survey.

Ni

By David S. Reese and Cap Sease
(Department of Anthropology)

We have recently returned from a month of archaeological excava-
tion and study at Nippur in southern Iraq, the ancient area known as
Sumer and Akkad of Mesopotamia (the land between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers). Field Museum researchers have worked in the
area before; from 1922 to 1933, Field Museum and the Ashmolean
Museum of the University of Oxford jointly excavated the neighbor-
ing sites of Kish and Jemdet Nasr, not far north of Nippur. The
Anthropology collections include one-third of all objects excavated
at these sites.

Nippur was the Jerusalem, Rome, or Mecca of its time. Accord-
ing to mythology, it was the place where heaven and earth were sepa-
tated during creation. It was also where man first sprang from a hole
in the earth made by the pick-axe of Enlil, the major Sumerian god.
The temples at Nippur made the city the primary religious center of
ancient Mesopotamia. Of course there was more to the city than just
the temples: City walls, irrigation canals, palaces, scribal quarters,
markets, and domestic quarters have all been unearthed.

We joined the expedition — the 19th season of excavations spon-
sored by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, under
the direction of Prof. McGuire Gibson — for the final month of
excavation in March. Cap was the expedition conservator, responsi-
ble for cleaning and reassembling the objects excavated. David was
the faunal analyst, studying the animal bones and shells recovered
during the excavation. This work should lead to a better understand-
ing of the city’s subsistence economy as well as the character of the
ancient environment.

The Nippur dig is based in a mudbrick house built in 1964. By
most dig standards, the house is palatial. When Cap worked at the
nearby site of Abu Salabikh twelve years ago, she lived in tents in
the desert — not bad accommodations until the rainy season started
earlier than usual, and she and her colleagues found themselves up to
their eyeballs in mud! The Nippur house is built around two large
courtyards and contains a living room (with fireplace), a dining
room, a kitchen, a laboratory/work room, 4 computer room, a dark-
room, eight bedrooms, two showers (with hot water), and store-
rooms. The prized possession, acquired last year, is a working, thir-
ty-year-old Maytag Gyrator washing machine.

While the Oriental Institute itself has been excavating Nippur for
the past 19 seasons, the Chicago and American connection with Nip-
pur go back much further. In fact, the first American excayation in
Mesopotamia was at Nippur in 1888-1900, sponsored by the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania. At that time the site was located in a swamp,
usually reached only by boat. The University of Chicago became
involved in the excavations in 1948, when the site was buried in an
ocean of sand. Today most of the sand dunes have drifted off of the

mound, and the site is much easier to reach. A new superhighway
takes one from the capital, Baghdad, to the excavation in under two
hours.

Archaeologically, we know that the site was first occupied some-
time prior to 4000 B.C. and abandoned about A.D. 1000. The
mound, although badly weathered, is enormous. It rises over 60 feet
above water level and it takes an hour of brisk walking to completely
encircle it. The scale of architecture is truly amazing: An Early
Dynastic I/II (about 2600 B. C.) temple previously excavated is
over 275 feet long and 80 feet wide.

Two areas on the West Mound were excavated this season. Area
WA saw the clearing of superimposed mudbrick temples
(shown aboye), where Pennsylvania first worked =
back at the turn of the century and the Chica- pal
go team excavated in 1972. The nearby Area
WE is a deep trench begun last year. More
than 40 feet deep at the end of the season, it
went from the Early Islamic period at the top to
the Early Dynastic period at the bottom, repre-~ j
senting about 5,000 years of human occu-
pation. Many burials were found here.
Some contained ceramic vessels
(generally bowls, some contain-
ing fish bones), bronze ves-
sels, gold and agate jewelry,
and cylinder seals, while oth- Hie
ElsaweresaSsSOciaicGewithatic- SSS il a. he: -
remains of young sheep or goat and donkeys.

One of the prize finds of the season was a 4,500-year-old goddess-
handle jar from an Early Dynastic burial, very similar to examples
from Kish now in the Field Museum. Thefunction of these burial
vessels was to store liquids for the dead. The decoration is incised,
with the handle having a crude representation of the mother-goddess
Inanna. Some scholars have suggested that believers hoped to
invoke the mediation of the mother-goddess when the spirits of the
dead confronted the terrible deities of the underworld.

Since we were there at the end of the season, time was at a premi-
um and we worked long hours. We did, however, have some time to
see a bit of the country. One weekend we made an excursion to
Babylon, and enroute had the opportunity to walk over the ruins of
Kish. We tried to visualize what it must have been like to work here
60 years ago. The archaeology would have been as exciting as today,
but the creature comforts very much more primitive. The Japanese
have recently begun excavating there, and the British have recently
returned to Jemdet Nasr.

Ox. Neg. 334

C. Seass

A typical goddess-handle jar
from Kish unearthed during the
Field-Ashmolean expedition. A
similar treasure, about 4,500
years old, was found at Nippur
this past season.

Newtontia

(continued from page 10)

species. But still there was no
description of it!
Of course it was the last arti-

Steve and I had had the good
fortune to rediscover a species
that had eluded ornithologists

but his memory was no clearer
than mine.

When we did return to our
base in the small city of Fort
Dauphin a few days later, Steve
methodically and professionally
took time to make arrangements
with our Malagasy assistants for
the next phase of work. J, on the
other hand, made an impatient
dive into the trunk containing
the books and papers we had
brought with us for reference.
Most of them mentioned the
Red-tailed Newtonia, but none
illustrated it, and many had very
little to say about it. I continued
searching, and soon Steve was
able to join me.

One reference began to
explain the mystery. The

Red-tailed Newtonia had been
collected only once. In Decem-
ber 1931 (ironically, just a few
months after Rand’s expedition),
a single specimen had been col-
lected and deposited in the
Swedish Museum of Natural
History, The bird had not been
found since, and as the forest in
which the first specimen was
obtained was now cleared, it
was possible that the species
was extinct; some ornithologists
doubted that it ever existed at
all, and suggested that the
unique specimen must be just an
aberration, an odd individual of
some other, better-known

An extremely rare bird observed during the survey was
this short-legged ground roller. (Photo: James Ryan)

cle we consulted that contained
the information we needed.
With growing excitement, we
read that the Red-tailed Newto-
nia has an “incredibly close”
resemblance to the female Red-
tailed Vanga,

but can be dis- =
tinguished by
the size and
color of the
bill and the
less conspicu-
ous white ring
around the
eye: exactly
the differences
I had noted on
my tape.

for decades.

In some ways this was just a
special highlight of our explo-
ration of Andohahela. We
already had more than enough
evidence that this reserve con-

tained a surprisingly large num-
ber of rare species. Armed with
our information, conservation-
ists from the World Wide Fund
for Nature will have renewed
vigor for their efforts to manage
Andohahela and to work with
local villagers to reduce
encroachment on the reserve.
And we were encouraged that
similar surveys in other unex-
plored parts of Madagascar
might reveal other areas of simi-
larly high diversity. This kind of
information will be needed in
order to decide where to spend
precious conservation dollars.

July/August T990

[iil

The character
| of Japan.
Leaving an indelible impression
moves business in a way that nothing
else can, One thatis molded by your
own hand so that no one else can
doit with quite the same panache.
And that’s what can make all
the difference in an airline.
| From 56 flights a week to Tokyo
' and the most nonstops to Osaka,
United's Royal Pacific Service is
uniquely tailored to the special needs
of international business travelers
halfway around the world.
United. Come fly the friendly
skies.
Call your Travel Agent, Or call
United at 1-800-538-2929,

TOKYO* OSAKA* HONGKONG *SEQUL* TAIPEI’ SYDNEY ~ MELBOURNE * BEIING*SHANGHAI* AUCKLAND * SINGAPORE* MANILA * BANGKOK