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Welcome to Flag Hall at the National Museum of American History.
We pretty much figure than this is where the magic happens. In our first episode
we took a look at some fragments from the original Star-Spangled Banner.
The real flag lives behind this wall. All of the objects we've looked at
so far
are part of the story of the United States of America.
But what about the stories that come from America before it was the United States?
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To learn more about parts of the country that actually didn't join us until later,
we're jointed today by Curator of Latino History and Culture
in the Division of Home and Community Life, Margaret Salazar-Pozio.
Thank you for joining us today! Thanks so much for having me.
So here we are in front of a giant case and in this giant case we have what?
Well, we are going to look at a hide painting, a large hide painting that was found in
a church in Santo Domingo, New Mexico and
it is of St. Anthony of Padua and infant Jesus.
Great, let's bring it out.
Get ready guys, this is the big reveal.
Nice. Wow!
Look at that it's huge! It is
pretty big and it's also incredibly delicate
I so badly wanna touch it and I'm not allowed. Nah.
For conservation purposes it probably won't go out on display
ever again, but that's why we get to share it with the
public in a venue like this.
Isn't that so cool? You're never going to see this ever again. (laugh) Send it to your friends.
One of the questions we received from viewers,
which by the way we still want questions from everybody, is a little bit about St. Anthony.
Do we know anything about him?
Well, St. Anthony was
a member the Franciscan Order and you can tell by his hairdo
actually, and he's pictured with a book that we believe to be
of the rules of the Franciscan Order,
and he is also pictured holding the baby Jesus
who appeared to him in a vision in his youth.
St. Anthony is depicted with a brown robe of the Franciscan Order and a
knotted cord
around his waist. You can see the knots
and the knotted cord would have been used for
sometimes self-flagellation, sometimes
for praying purposes. Down here is a white
ribbon that says San Antonio.
And we're not sure what it would have said on this side. he didn't
Too bad it doesn't say like 1725 by artist so-and-so.
That would have been ideal.
That's not what happens in most history.
These rounded hills also feature some
pear-shaped trees and perhaps these are some of
the palms that would have been laid at the feet of
Jesus. This indigo sky
and the white kind-of clouds
echo the baby Jesus' halo, and St. Francis
is known as the patron saint of lost things, so
if you pray to him, Catholics believe that he will help you find lost things.
This is obviously very old,
what else to do we know about the painting itself?
Sure. So it was collected in Santo Domingo, New Mexico
in 1897, and it
is painted on elk hide.
There are debates over when it actually was produced and who produced it
and the debates are actually part of the interesting history in the object.
So on one hand there are people who believe that it was
maybe painted as early as 1600-
1610. Other sources say that it was painted in 1725 by a Franciscan monk.
And then others say that it was even later like early 1800s,
and that it was painted by enslaved Native Americans in the missions.
So there are multiple different kinds of stories than what those stories
all tell us is that these are different kinds of traditions and different kinds
ways it could have been produced because many hide paintings were produced at the time
so it reflects
a larger history of hide painting.
Tell us a little bit about the fact that
you know in 1600, 1725, even as late as 1810 when the Mexican
revolution started, none of this would have
belonged to America. It's really interesting that this is an American
History Museum.
Yeah, and that's a question that we are always kind of grappling with and
tackling is: what is
American history? And for me, I come from the southwest, I'm from California
and so
my understanding American history starts well before
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but also takes into account this long
history of
conquest and also of an incorporation into the nation: new states,
new places, new people as the nation grew
the borders changed, and so
it's a very interesting history, and it's part of what we
aim document here at American History.
Thanks for joining us today!
Be sure to check out our next episode by following us online at americanhistory.si.edu
Our next object is Mr. Peanut! See you next time!