WASHINGTON (AFP) - Sporting traditional feather headdresses, medals and fringe-trimmed outfits, nearly 10,000 Native Americans marched on Washington's National Mall for the long-awaited opening of the National Museum of the American Indian.
The procession, accompanied by traditional chants and tambourines, included members of hundreds of tribes and villages from Alaska to Hawaii and from Quebec to Florida.
Some 8,978 Native Americans took part in the march, according to organizers, led by museum director Richard West, of Cheyenne origin, and by an American Indian chief in a white outfit and long feather headdress.
The Yukon sent only one representative, while 300 Navajos came from New Mexico. Tens of thousands of people gathered to watch the parade, including many Native Americans.
The procession also highlighted some of modern-day challenges Native Americans face, including obesity and other health problems, as evidenced by the dozens of wheelchairs in use and the difficulties others had in walking on their own.
Seated in a wheelchair early Tuesday, waiting for the ceremony to begin, Carol Cypress, a Seminole City, Florida curator, welcomed the museum's opening.
"I saw most of the museums in this country; there was nothing to represent our native peoples. Everything else has been covered. Maybe the country has finally accepted there are native people here," she said.
Mark Bruised, a Native American police officer on Montana's Crow Reservation, traveled from his home state to serve in the mounted police force monitoring the event.
With his long black hair spilling down almost to the saddle on his chestnut-brown horse, Bruised said: "It's an honor to be here." But with a smile, he gracefully sidestepped questions seeking his reaction to the amount of time it took to build the museum in the US capital.
"I'm not paid enough to think," he said.
Paul Rainbird, part of the Tewa tribe of New Mexico and one of the people who began negotiations for the museum with the Smithsonian Institution in the 1980s, said he was not surprised it took so long for the museum to open its doors.
"The museum came last. Knowing this country, it's not a surprise. ... The American Indians were always left behind, second-class citizens," he said.
"I was here for the opening of the Holocaust Museum, and I was wondering why we haven't been able to address the same kind of problems for the Indian people."
Rainbird said that in the 1980s, "a lot of people did not want to give this prime location to the American Indians. A lot were against us being on the Mall" because "we are a counter-culture in this country, and the only true minority, along with the African-Americans."
The ceremony kicked off the six-day First Americans Festival, which runs through September 26 in Washington, celebrating Native American music, dance and storytelling.
The museum, which cost some 219 million dollars to build, is divided into three sections: "Our Lives," focusing on modern-day Native Americans; "Our Peoples," highlighting the various communities' histories; and "Our Universes," which illustrates how "traditional knowledge shapes our world."
Located just steps from the US Capitol building, alongside the dozen other museums that make up the venerated Smithsonian Institution, the curvilinear building designed by Native American architects stands in stark contrast with its boxy neighbor, the National Air and Space Museum.
The museum's original architect, Douglas Cardinal of Canada, however, boycotted the opening ceremony here Tuesday because he felt his contribution went largely uncredited.
"What have I got to celebrate?" he told Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper.
But Doug Evelyn, the museum's deputy director, insisted: "This is a Cardinal building. It is Douglas Cardinal. It speaks to you."
Museum spokesman Thomas Sweeney agreed that Cardinal's imprint was evident: "He's credited in the building and in our materials. ... I wouldn't say (Cardinal's name) is buried," Sweeney said.