Code talkers. In the radio communications conducted by Native American code talkers during World War II, army tanks were called “wakaree´e,” a Comanche word for turtle; transport planes were “atsá,” the Navajo word for eagle; and “paaki,” a Hopi word meaning houses on water, was a name for ships. Hundreds of American Indians joined the armed forces during World Wars I and II and, at the behest of the U.S. military, developed secret battle communications based on Native languages. America’s enemies were never able to decipher these codes. Code talkers, as they came to be known after World War II, are 20th-century American Indian warriors and heroes. “Native Words, Native Warriors,” a new Web site from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, pays homage to the lives and experiences of Native American code talkers during both world wars and also explores their prewar and postwar lives. This Web site is a companion to a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service exhibition of the
same name.
—www.nmai.si.edu/education/codetalkers

Southeast Asian ceramics. Versatile, round-bottomed cooking pots made of earthenware clay have been used for generations in Southeast Asia to simmer herbal medicine, prepare dyes and even bury cremated remains. Before the introduction of glass, metal and plastic, small stoneware jars were used to hold tea, salt and cooking sauces. Lidded stoneware boxes served as protective containers for perfumed wax, cosmetics, medicine and jewelry. “Taking Shape: Ceramics in Southeast Asia” is a new Web site from the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries that presents ceramics made during the last 4,000 years in the region that today comprises Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Burma. Potters typically reproduced shapes,textures and patterns handed down in their communities from generation to generation, along with the methods for preparing, shaping and firing clay. Archaeologists studying ancient settlements can gauge exchanges among communities by the mixture of local and exotic pots found in excavation sites. Together, these vessels illustrate the movements of pots from their makers to their users, whether between two villages, along rivers or across oceans.
—www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/takingshape.htm