Real Story of Quileute Wolves depicted in "Twilight" Books and Movies to Open

Native News Network Staff in Entertainment. Discussion »

Quileute Teens

WASHINGTON - As a counterpoint to the supernatural storyline depicted in the popular "Twilight" books and movies, "Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves" is an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian that brings together rare works of Quileute art.

Opening January 13, the exhibition will be on view through May 9 in the museum's second level Sealaska Gallery.

Quileute Wolf Headdress

The exhibition showcases 23 objects, including elaborate wolf headdresses, rattles, baskets and a whale-bone dance club. Historic drawings created by Quileute teens who attended the Quileute Day School at Mora, near La Push, Washington, from 1905 through 1908, depict activities, including wolf ritual dances and shamanistic performances, house posts that were part of the Potlatch Hall and a whaling scene that shows a crew of eight men coming alongside a whale in their cedar canoe.

Visitors will be able to learn more about Quileute ritual life and the five secret societies that maintained balance between the human and spirit realms, including the Wolf society for warriors, the Fisherman's society for fisherman and sealers, the Hunter's or Elk society for land-animal hunters, the Whale Hunters and the Weatherman's Society, who predicted the weather. Whaling was an important but dangerous endeavor as the giant sea mammals where hunted on the open ocean from 35-foot dugout canoes.

Quileute Basket with Wolf Design

The exhibition also includes a map of Quileute language place names of the modern village and the vast aboriginal territories stretching from the ocean to the Olympic Mountains, a timeline of Quileute history and a 12-minute looped video that illuminates the history and oral and cultural traditions through interviews with tribal members and teens as they describe the phenomenon and effect of the "Twilight" films in their own words.

Replicas of items used in the "Twilight" films include a paddle necklace worn by the character Emily portrayed by actor Tinsel Korey, a traditional Quileute hand drum that hangs in Emily's house, a shell necklace of Olivella shells that was on the wall of her house and the dream catcher that Jacob gives to Bella as a gift.

During the exhibition's opening weekend, Quileute tribal member and one of only two fluent speakers left in the tribe, Chris Morganroth III, will tell traditional stories for kids and families in the museum's imagiNATIONS Activity Center at 1:30 pm as well as presenting Quileute culture and stories in the Rasmuson Theater at 11 am and 3 pm during the Native Storytelling Festival, Saturday and Sunday, January 14 and 15.

posted January 3, 2011 6:00 am est