days of old
Art Bridges Cultures Artist Eugene Brown created “A Tribe Named Miami, A
“A Tribe Named Miami, A Surveyor’s Stake, A Town Named Oxford” was created by Tribe Elder Eugene Brown in 2003 to strengthen the relationship between the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University. The 31 x 10 x 30-inch wood sculpture is currently on display at the Miami University Art Museum. An enlarged cast bronze replica of it was installed by the artist in the art museum’s sculpture park in 2008.
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miamian magazine
Surveyor’s Stake, A Town Named Oxford” in 2003 as part of his mission to keep his tribe’s culture alive. “I want to preserve American Indian culture. If just one generation keeps it and doesn’t pass it on, then it is lost,” said Brown, who was born in 1926 in Quapaw, Oklahoma, and was an elder of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. His original work — a 31 x 10 x 30-inch wood with pigment — is on display at the Miami University Art Museum (MUAM), on loan from the collection of Joseph Leonard, Miami professor emeritus of Management and son of the late Miami Chief Floyd Leonard. In 2008, an enlarged cast bronze replica was installed in MUAM’s sculpture park. It features natural elements valued in the Myaamia culture, such as a loon, a sandhill crane (representing the Myaamia people), and a turtle at the base (representing Myaamia land), with cattails surrounding other plants and animals important to the Tribe. The white post through the center represents a surveyor’s stake, which symbolizes the transition of this land from Myaamia homelands into a territory and a state, upon which the university was founded. This sculpture aims to strengthen the relationship between the university and the Tribe. As explained in the Miami University Sculpture Park Viewing Guide, “The sculpture represents an intersection of Miami with the land it was built on, as well as a connector between the past, present, and future. This initiative to revitalize the ties to [Myaamia] culture in 2008 is another branch in Miami’s ongoing initiative to more adequately honor its borrowed name.” While Brown passed away in 2017, his work continues to keep both his and his tribe’s memory alive. He became active with the Miami Tribe in the early 1970s, in an effort to recapture his heritage. He learned woodworking skills as a child and started making flutes, mainly from rivercane, after attending many powwows to study Native American flute music.