FLAG DAY

Flag Day is approaching and, as always, I am reminded of a unique and powerful exhibit which I visited in Flint, Michigan during the Bicentennial the summer of 1976.  I was rehearsing a play which would open in Flint and then tour the summer stock circuit.  

The exhibit contained only articles made by Native Americans celebrating the Centennial in 1876 and was scheduled for a national tour after its debut in Flint.  You entered the exhibit in one wing of the museum through a round hole in the side of a  giant, canvas teepee - it was of course treated to resemble a teepee made of buffalo hide.  Stepping through the opening, I was suddenly in a whole new world, quiet except for the sound of muffled drums and an occasional sharp cry of ‘kai, kai.‘  The walls of the museum were painted in dioramas which appeared to stretch across vast deserts to distant hills and mountains where bison grazed under the watchful eyes of mounted, Indian hunters.  In glass cases just at hip level were various items - each decorated with a tiny American flag, or the letters USA, or woven, plaited or painted red, white and blue.  I was particularly taken with a tiny pair of children’s moccasins that were beaded in strips of red, white and blue.  There were cradle boards, rifles, bows and arrows, war clubs, tomahawks, harness, tanned hides, bearskin robes, blankets, tools, many different kettles and bowls, men’s shirts and trousers, breech cloths, women’s dresses and shawls - all decorated in some way to celebrate the 100th birthday of America.  The then American flag with thirty-seven stars was depicted everywhere.  Near the end of the exhibit was a camp fire surrounded by a few small teepees representing a village - there were very lifelike figures of men, women and children scattered about and there was a faint aroma of roasting meat and the low murmur of voices with the muffled drums continuing throughout.  It was mystic, hauntingly beautiful and remains with me to this day.

All this magnificent, moving tribute from people who were driven from their lands and homes and were, at the Centennial, mostly living on reservations.  If those folks could celebrate the American Centennial then I can certainly treasure them now and celebrate Flag Day by proudly flying my American Flag and remember, too, that one of the U.S. Marines, Ira Hayes, who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima, was a Native American.  Near the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery is the memorial statue celebrating this historic flag raising and a cloth flag flies above it twenty-four hours a day by order of a presidential proclamation issued in 1961 by President Kennedy.  Long may it wave.