La Junta – It is a rare treat when a visit to a museum brings with it a live stage show, and an Indian dance spectacular at that, performed by Boy Scouts. And it’s equally unusual to come across a first-
rate collection of Native American antiquities in a rural Colorado community.
The Koshare Indian Museum in La Junta is a showcase of customs and culture from an assortment of Plains and Pueblo tribes that roamed the heartland and Southwest desert nearly two centuries ago. Celebrating its 71st year, the museum’s collection ranges from works by leading Taos artists of the early 1900s to various artifacts, handicrafts and pottery.
Spread across three galleries in a modern adobelike building, this collection improves with age as new donations and purchases have swelled the number of pieces to almost 4,000.
However, the distinctive carvings, basketry and beadwork are but half the appeal. What enhances the collection and gives it meaning are the Koshare Indian Dancers, an ensemble of spirited young performers who emulate in song, dance and with the brilliant plumage of their costumes the oft-forgotten lives of the Southwest’s earliest denizens.
They will perform Dec. 27-31 in La Junta, with performances in a cavernous kiva, or ceremonial chamber, fashioned from logs beneath the museum.
The dancers’ dexterity, as they glide, leap and whirl through war dances and ceremonial rites, leaves one wondering: Could those really be Boy Scouts beneath the feathery headdresses and paint? Indeed, they are all members of La Junta Scout Troop 232, which has been putting on the shows since 1933.
Koshares are not a tribe, but refers to clowns of the Rio Grande Pueblos who provided comic relief and also sought to strengthen community values.
Today’s La Junta Koshares, with their bodies similarly emblazoned in bold black and white stripes, offer up a running side show of jokes and patter during the performance.
The scouts practice rigorously all year for their performances, which run Saturdays in June and July and on other days when more than 100 people have made reservations. They also take their show on the road, traveling as far as New York and Anchorage for 20 or more recitals a year.
Watching this elaborate masquerade unfold in a circle-in-
the-round setting to the accompaniment of drums and chants is treat enough, but the elaborate costuming is an extra delight, because the youths themselves have sewn and woven them, hewing closely to original, tribal designs.
Many of the dancers are Eagle Scouts, the most exalted ranking. It is no coincidence that Troop 232 boasts nearly 600 Eagles, more, it claims, than any other in the U.S. since the Koshares are an integral part of troop life and the scouts spend an average seven years in the dance group.
Enjoying the show makes the museum artifacts more relevant and inspiring, which was the intent of the Koshares’ founder, James Francis “Buck” Burshears, who in 1933 put together his love for scouting with his fascination for Indian culture. As scoutmaster, he formed the dance group, envisioning them as a means to honor Native Americans by interpreting their tribal rituals and music.
Though Burshears, a railroad laborer, was hardly a wealthy man, he somehow managed over the years to accumulate, through purchase, barter and gift, one of the larger arrangements of 19th- and early 20th- century art and artifacts of some dozen tribes.
“Our collection categorizes the life and culture of Native Americans of the plains and southwest of a long-ago era,” says Tina Wilcox, the museum’s curator. “From tools to regalia, to utilitarian and ceremonial, it is all here.”
So much of it, in fact, that the museum, swelled by purchases and contributions from art lovers through the decades, can display barely one-third of its inventory. The remainder is in storage, awaiting the day, perhaps by 2008, when an expansion can be undertaken to properly do it all justice.
Dick Woodbury is a Denver freelance writer.
The details
Koshare Indian Museum is just off U.S. 50 in La Junta on the campus of Otero Junior College. The site is about one hour east of Pueblo, or about three hours from Denver, a 175-mile drive.
Information: 719-384-4411;
Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday and Wednesday, until 5 p.m. the rest of the week.
Admission: $4 for adults and $3 for students 7-17 and seniors 55 and older. Children 6 and under are admitted free.
Koshare Winter Ceremonials: Dancers will perform at 7 p.m. Dec. 27-30 and at 4 p.m. Dec. 31.
Etc.: An extensive gift shop, featuring Hopi and Acoma Pueblo pottery, jewelry and Hopi Kachina dolls, complements the museum.
