Cherika Penrod’s favorite artifact in the Montana Heritage Center is around the corner from the entrance. Next to a life-sized tipi in an unassuming glass case, it’s an elk-tooth dress.
Penrod is a tour guide at the Montana Heritage Center. She said Plains tribes in Montana would use elk ivory to adorn dresses. Elk ivory isn’t true ivory, but each elk has two ivory teeth at most. A woman would get an elk ivory based on her status in the tribe. Maybe she was connected to good hunters or married to the chief. The dress on display had three rows of teeth.
“This woman probably would have been top tier,” Penrod said.
MTPR Hosts and Producers Keely Larson and Lauren Korn went on a field trip to the heritage center in July with a burning question in mind: How does a museum curate exhibits in a way that ties people both to the past and to the present? Especially in a place like Montana where much of the cultural past is still a very big part of the present moment — think mining, ranching, Indigenous culture. How does a museum, particularly the Montana Heritage Center, operate under this ethos?
Keely and Lauren talk to Cherika Penrod, the Montana Heritage Center's Program Manager Amanda Trum, Jeff Bartos from the center's publications department and Pete Brown with historic preservation and ask them all versions of their big question in this Sunday Special for MTPR.
