New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, was one of the world’s premier science institutions. Now, thanks to the leftism that it has supported, it has literally been forced to erase Native American history for the foreseeable future. The Schadenfreude is delicious.

Once, the museum taught visitors about the lives of Eastern Woodlands and Plains Indians. According to the museum’s soon-to-be-erased web page about the Eastern Woodlands Indians,

The Hall of Eastern Woodlands focuses on the traditional cultures of the Native American peoples, including the Iroquois, Mohegans, Ojibwas, and Crees, living in the Eastern Woodlands of North America through the early 20th century.

This hall features a variety of dwelling styles, including an Ojibwa domed wigwam, an Iroquois longhouse, and a Creek council house, along with typical lodgings of the Natchez, Seminole, and Fox peoples. Information about farming techniques, food preparation, clothing styles, and ceremonial practices presents a picture of daily life, and examples of pottery, baskets, tools, metal jewelry, musical instruments, and textiles showcase a wide range of craftsmanship.

One highlight is a model of a Menominee birchbark canoe, which was made entirely of forest products and was light enough to be carried from stream to stream. The exhibit details how the canoe was constructed and its importance in transporting people and goods through forested areas.

Meanwhile, the soon-to-be erased web page about the Plains Indians explained,

The Hall of the Great Plains focuses on the life of 19th-century Hidatsa, Dakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and other nations of the North American Plains.

For many of these societies, bison was the primary source of food as well as materials for clothing and other items. Hunting was a central part of life, and bravery and skill in hunting were highly valued. Nomadic tribes such as the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Crow relied on horses and followed the migrations of the great herds of bison until settlers drove these animals to near-extinction in the 1880s. Other groups, such as the Hidatsa, hunted bison but also practiced agriculture and established permanent villages.

This hall highlights military and ceremonial societies, which played an important role, as well as games, weapons, and agricultural tools. Distinctive clothing of the Cree, Cheyenne, Assiniboine, Crow, and others is also featured, in addition to different housing styles that include a Blackfoot teepee, a Wichita great house, and a Hidatsa earth lodge.

Clearly, both these exhibits were comprehensive, respectful, and even admiring looks at Native Americans.

Now, though, thanks in significant part to help from Elizabeth Warren, the famous fake Indian, those halls are closing. The consequence is a new Biden Interior Department rule putting an end to such exhibits. The Interior Department has reinterpreted the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to require that before anything that Native Americans consider to be sacred, funerary, or—and here’s the broad one—“objects of cultural patrimony” can show up in a museum, lineal descendants or affiliated tribes must give their permission.

Thanks to the updated rules, the Museum of Natural History is shutting down its Native American exhibits, the ones that annually exposed tens of thousands of people to Native American life in America. The museum will be re-opening these exhibits, and I’m sure you can imagine just how politically correct the renewed exhibitions will be. After all, this is the same museum that removed the Theodore Roosevelt statue that sat at its entrance for 80 years, despite his status as one of the museum’s founders and his role in preserving much of America’s natural (and Native American) history.

The Museum of Natural History, of course, is not the only leftist bastion to shut the public out of learning about Native American history. The Field Museum in Chicago is engaged in the same process of erasure. I’m sure other exhibits across America are being shut down. [UPDATE: Susan Daniels informed me that Cleveland's Museum of Art has also shuttered its exhibit.]

One thing I can guarantee is that the new exhibits at these museums, no matter what they gain in accuracy over old ideas and prejudices, will remain silent about the Native Americans’ affinity for stone-aged practices such as non-stop intertribal warfare, staggeringly cruel torture (see this book, too), mass slaughter (of both humans and animals), and child kidnapping to replace the tribe members lost to the endless violence. As to those matters, leftists can’t handle the truth.

Image: Battle Between Sioux and Sac and Fox by George Catlin. Public domain.