EUGENE–Hear the words "boarding school" and what comes to mind? A place where wealthy parents send their children–ties and jackets, ivy covered walls, lonely kids. Exclusive, but alienating.

Recent American history presents a darker version of the boarding school. This version was equally exclusive–for Indian children only. And more alienating–a place where children as young as six were separated from their homes, their families, their languages and their religions. Where, at some times and places, they were not allowed to go home for five years.

"They Sacrificed For Our Survival," an exhibit of photographs and oral history exploring the Indian boarding school experience, opens Tuesday, Sept. 28, at the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History, 1680 E. 15th Ave.

Continuing through Dec. 23, the exhibit–and museum store–will be open from noon to
5 p.m. six days a week, from Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for children 12 and under, with museum members and UO faculty, staff and students admitted free.

The boarding school exhibit, circulated by Exhibit Touring Services (ETS) at Eastern Washington University, is part of "Carrying the Song," a series of three related exhibitions on the survival of Native American cultures in the Pacific Northwest. The series runs through spring 2000 at the UO museum.

"They Sacrificed For Our Survival" includes a November visit by anthropologist Tsianina Lomawaima, a noted author and professor of Native American studies at the University of Arizona. Sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center, her Nov. 4—6 visit will include talks at the university, at South Eugene High School and at a museum event for students and families.

From 1879 through the Depression, the federal government removed young Indian people from their cultural roots and placed them in boarding schools intended to "civilize" Indian children with military discipline and manual labor. The mission was to transform Native American identity–
to replace native cultures with the habits and behavior of white farmers and factory workers.

But the story of the boarding schools is also the story of Indian students, as Lomawaima puts it, who were "loyal to each other, linked as family, and subversive in their resistance."

For information about "They Sacrificed For Our Survival," including guided group tours of the exhibit on Tuesday through Friday, call (541) 346-3024, visit the UO Museum of Natural History’s web site at http://natural-history.uoregon.edu or send e-mail to mnh@oregon.uoregon.edu.

Information about museum programs and exhibits also is available 24 hours a day by calling GuardLine from a TouchTone phone, 485-2000, and selecting category 3447.

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