Fields & Streams exhibition

Fields & Streams: Hunting and Wildlife in the American West

September 22, 2006- January 21, 2007

Hunting and wildlife. For many of us today, these terms conjure images of sport or recreation in nature. But in earlier times, survival depended on the abundance of wildlife and the successful hunting of it. Animals were predator and prey, companion and competitor. But beyond that, despite differing perspectives and practices native and immigrant alike depended on animals for food, shelter, clothing and even religion.

The indigenous civilizations of North America were keenly aware of this dependence and spent their collective existence honing a beneficial, and sometimes brutal, coexistence with nature - seeking to understand it, taking from it, honoring it, and giving back to it. All Native American belief systems shared the idea that the natural world was not created for human exploitation and domination. Instead, Native Americans believed that if they cared for the resources of the Earth, then the Earth would take care of them. Much of the ceremony and religious practice of various Native American tribes reflect this reverence for nature and wildlife. Their tools (from domesticated wolves to the bow and arrow) and practices (from trapping animals to the epic buffalo hunts) were traditions perfected through centuries so as to preserve this delicate balance.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans and their powerful, transformational products, desires, and structures, Native Americans possessed extensive knowledge about the environments in which they lived. Spiritual forces were believed to be present in every natural object, from insects to mountains, compelling a sacred relationship with animals and plants, an extraordinary variety of which were drawn on for daily subsistence. In some regions, specific animals or plants came to represent entire groups of people: caribou for sub arctic Indians, acorns and deer for native Californians, salmon for Northwest Coasters, corn for the Southwest Puebloans. But no relation between animal and people was more prominent than that of the buffalo to the Plains Indians.

When the earliest European settlers arrived in North America, their own struggle to survive was compounded by a lack of knowledge of this new land. Small factions of European societies arrived, often lacking essential skills and knowledge understood by their larger collective culture. So whereas techniques for farming, hunting, and land use had long been successfully employed in Europe, many of the earliest immigrants had only fragments of useful knowledge with which to survive.

As settlers began to flood the landscape, the foreign environment and its wildlife posed challenges that were only partially mitigated by the introduction of the settlers' modern weapons. New techniques for hunting emerged and collided with extant Native American practices. Soon, firearms became ubiquitous and prized for trade, treasures from the ‘New World' were sought in Europe, and hunting began for financial gain. These rapid changes to environmental, economic, and religious patterns disrupted an ancient balance, supplanting it with a new phase of reward, challenge, and hardship for many who lived in this land.

Fields & Streams: Hunting and Wildlife in the American West, explores these dynamic relationships through the art of some of the best-known Western genre artists. The exhibition draws on the Museum's art collection as well as on works from the Genesee Country Village Museum John L. Wehle Gallery of Sporting Art. From the multiple perspectives of Native Americans, European settlers, and even the animals, hunting and wildlife in the American West is a story about survival, adaptation, and the interdependence of all life - human or otherwise.