A group of BYU students organizes an FHE for the MPC
There was some belated trick-or-treating in Provo on the evening of Monday, November 2nd. Family Home Evening groups from the Elms apartments were invited to the Museum of Peoples and Cultures for a special “Get to Know Your Neighbor” activity.
The event? El Dia de los Muertos – The Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrated in Latin America. A group of Recreation Management & Youth Leadership (RMYL) students put together the event, which featured decorating sugar skulls, refreshments, and special tours of the museum.
“It was a really great way to get the students more involved with the MPC” said Anna McKean, promotions manager at the MPC. “A lot of the Elms residents hadn’t ever visited the museum before, and the RMYL students did a fantastic job creating an event just for them.”
The event was completely organized and run by BYU students taking an RMYL, and it was quite a success. The evening started off with a bit of history about El Dia de los Muertos, and then the groups were given a scavenger hunt to work on as a pro-active self-tour in the gallery. Groups were then taken one at a time and decorated their own sugar skulls.
The group explained how El Dia de los Muertos came from a ritual performed by the Aztecs that celebrated death. They felt that death was simply a continuation of life, that it was something to look forward to. When the Spaniards discovered them performing this ritual nearly 500 years ago, they tried to get rid of it and replace it with Catholicism. However, as some say, old habits die hard – and the Spaniards couldn’t get rid of this special day. The skulls are used to honor deceased ancestors – and so these young college students had a chance to pay respects to their heritage.
"An Interesting Find"
The Story Behind Juli Kelly's ORCA Project
While organizing un-catalogued archive materials, MPC employee Juli Kelly stumbled upon an interesting find. Albert Reagan, the first anthropology professor at BYU in the early 1930s, kept detailed journals of his filed work. Several of these journals were recently found here in the MPC archives.
Albert Reagan was born in Iowa in 1871, and joined the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1899. He spent several years working at the Ouray Day School, a school for Native American children.
Reagan also did extensive fieldwork in the Uinta Basin area, and his journals contain valuable information about many sites archaeologists are currently interested in, making this a timely discovery. These journals range from linguistic guides to archaeological site descriptions to general histories.
In hopes of doing further research on these fascinating journals, Kelly applied for an ORCA grant, in which she proposed to transcribe the most valuable of these documents and make them available to interested researchers. The grant would allow her to transcribe the journals and research the information they contain, which would prove to be a valuable contribution to the field.
Even More Cultural Resources
Some of the images in the MPC Learning Lounge have been provided by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. Did you know the Kennedy Center also provides cultural resources for educators? Visit their website http://kennedy.byu.edu/ and click on “Outreach” to learn more!
Museum of Peoples and Cultures 
Not Just Any Monday Night
