Welcome to the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum
Organizational History & Program Overview
The Tomaquag Museum is Rhode Island’s only museum entirely dedicated to telling the story of the state’s original inhabitants, and the only museum operated by Native people over the last 52 years. The Museum’s collection, site and welcoming spirit make it a destination that has brought people from Scotland, Japan, Australia, France, as well as people from across the United States to our door just over the last few months.
Our Mission is to educate the public regarding native history and culture of the past and connect to Native issues of today through our exhibits, programs, classes, and ceremonies that bring understanding and collaboration between the Indigenous people of our area and the public at large. We want to encourage thoughtful dialogue regarding Native history, current issues in Native America as well as regarding the Arts and Mother Earth. We educate the youth through our K-8 school, Nuweetooun.
The Board of Tomaquag Museum has developed the Museum’s facilities as active educational resources. The Museum and its grounds include gardens, forest, lawn, the outdoor Friendship Circle as well as the many Native exhibits and original historic documents in the Museum’s collection. Throughout the year, traditional thanksgivings celebrate the linked cycles of the earth, the seasons and food cultivation.
Tomaquag Museum includes a traditional Three Sisters garden of corn, beans and squash, a traditional home or wetu, and an outdoor classroom. Nuweetooun School is a central part of Tomaquag Museum. It empowers our youth. It teaches the knowledge of our ancestors through arts, history, and culture based education.
Each facility adds to the student experience at Nuweetooun School, but also offers new insights and opportunities to experience Native life and culture for visitors. We create a similar sense of engagement with our collections inside the building by gradually converting to open storage systems that make the collections and documents visible and available to visitors while also better meeting modern standards for conservation. Each year we have added new exhibits, video presentations, classes, conferences and programs to our educational component.
Regular visits by Native professionals, artists, storytellers and others adds many perspectives to each student’s discovery of the world at Tomaquag. Special programs such as Arts & Education support the Native community through educational advocacy and cultural arts. Classes such as beadwork, pottery, herbal wholistic healing, and painting are held annually. Presentations for the public through our offsite programs, lectures, and cultural presentations bring our culture, arts, and history to the public at large. Tomaquag’s educational programs on site include various tours, traditional arts, Native games, Indigenous foods, ecology of Mother Earth, Teacher’s Institutes, conferences, and contemporary issues and events.
