The 1984 Festival of American Folklife is especially significant for the Smithsonian and, I might add, pleasing to me, because it brings vibrant representatives of cultures with which the Institution has a special affinity.

From Alaska come native peoples whose rich traditions have been our concern even before the founding of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1879. For more than a century, the Institution has devoted a large part of its scholarly effort to the documentation and preservation of the deep and varied cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. To the keepers of these important traditions I bid welcome and extend our ...