User:Hshin025/Amelia Cornelius

Hshin025/Amelia Cornelius

Amelia Cornelius (born January 28, 1939, died March 12, 2016) was an artist from the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, known for her traditional Oneida corn bread and her corn husk dolls. Her contributions have been noted as having helped to preserve the Oneida culture and language.

Personal life

Cornelius was born on January 28, 1939 to Arthur Hawk and Priscilla Jordan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her grandparents were a large influence on Cornelius, as her grandfather shared his experiences in tribal affairs and history and she learned to create corn husk dolls from her grandmother Priscilla Jordan Hawk Manders, who in turn learned from Cornelius's great grandmother Amelia Wheelock Jordan.

Amelia Cornelius died on March 12, 2016 at the age of 78, from lung cancer.

Education

Cornelius earned a Bachelors in Communication from UW Green Bay.

Career

Cornelius served as the Oneida Tribal Secretary for 16 years, the Oneida Gaming Assistant Manger for 6 years, the Oneida Gaming Commission for 13 years, and as the Director of the Oneida Bilingual/Bi-cultural Program for 7 years.

Corn husk dolls

Cornelius's corn husk dolls are faceless and are dressed in the traditional Oneida dress of men and women. Per the artist, the dolls were meant to portray the individual's life goal of discovering and following one's own humble path and to showcase how women played significant role in Oneida culture, which she felt was not emphasized enough. The corn husk dolls are also posed to make it look like if it were doing an activity.

For the dolls Cornelius researched traditional styles of Oneida clothing and accessories, bead work design, and traditional storytelling which uses metaphors and symbols. Critics have stated that this enabled Cornelius to create dolls with deep cultural meanings and to teach younger generations about Oneida culture. To create the dolls Cornelius typically used white corn as the husk was longer and whiter, which made it easier to create the doll, and in order to have a plentiful supply she grew her own white corn.

Cornelius has been credited as pioneering the use of corn husk dolls as a way to preserve Oneida culture, as the dolls were initially used only as a toy and was declining in popularity.

Artworks

• Oneida Sachems (2009)
• Just like Me (2012)
• Four Directions (2012)

Publication

Articles

• "The Archiquette Genealogy"
• "Tribal Discord and the Road to Green Bay"

Collections

Cornelius's artwork has been displayed with her daughter Kim's mother-daughter dolls at the 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the National Mall in Washington, D.C..

Legacy

On Ocbover 14, 2018 a dedication was held to commemorate the naming of the Amelia Cornelius Culture Park, which was built to celebrate the survival of indigenous people. The park opened with a tobacco burning to appreciate and offer prayer for survival of Indigenous culture, tradition, and language which Amelia Cornelius, an Oneida historian, had done with her service and corn husk dolls.

References

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/greenbaypressgazette/obituary.aspx?n=amelia-cornelius&pid=178061045&fhid=14313 https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/amelia-cornelius https://search.proquest.com/openview/65623dce52318f1b01e0abf4e317bf37/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48116 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4On7AwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=%22amelia+cornelius%22&ots=ISMbWyKhui&sig=yeXoH6OnNALkOGWpVc1Nz5NOInI#v=onepage&q=%22amelia%20cornelius%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=etd7IYXRaIoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=%22amelia+cornelius%22&ots=5g_WTlvGv0&sig=IYg7UIulHtzyCff-ye7cJPNttIE#v=onepage&q=%22amelia%20cornelius%22&f=false http://www.wisconsinfolks.org/nishimoto3.htm