<P> The National Museum of the American Indian is home to the collection of the former Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation . The collection includes more than 800,000 objects, as well as a photographic archive of 125,000 images . It is divided into the following areas: Amazon; Andes; Arctic / Subarctic; California / Great Basin; Contemporary Art; Mesoamerican / Caribbean; Northwest Coast; Patagonia; Plains / Plateau; Woodlands . </P> <P> The collection, which became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990, was assembled by George Gustav Heye (1874--1957) during a 54 - year period, beginning in 1903 . He traveled throughout North and South America collecting Native objects . Heye used his collection to found New York's Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation and directed it until his death in 1957 . The Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian opened to the public in New York City in 1922 . </P> <P> The collection is not subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act . When the National Museum was created in 1989, a law governing repatriation was drafted specifically for the museum, the National Museum of the American Indian Act, upon which NAGPRA was modeled . In addition to repatriation, the museum dialogues with tribal communities regarding the appropriate curation of cultural heritage items . For example, the human remains vault is smudged once a week with tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar, and sacred Crow objects in the Plains vault are smudged with sage during the full moon . If the appropriate cultural tradition for curating an object is unknown, the Native staff uses their own cultural knowledge and customs to treat materials as respectfully as possible . </P> <P> The museum has programs in which Native American scholars and artists can view NMAI's collections to enhance their own research and artwork . </P>

National museum of the american indian 4th street southwest washington dc