Political Correctness at the Folk Art Museum

A couple of minor bones to pick with “The Red That Colored The World,” the excellent current exhibition, through September 6, at the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe. The red in this case came from the cochineal, a small bug that “lives, breeds and feeds on the pad of prickly pear cactus.” The cochineal was grown in some sort of organized manner and harvested well before the Spanish came. Dried and crushed, it is used in painting and to color cloth. Bone one is with the slight information provided about how the Indians grew the bug. After all, they were in a very low tech environment.
Bones two and three go to political correctness.
A change in the area where the cochineal is found is mentioned and called probably due to climate change (it might have been “possibly). Well, maybe, or maybe not. No proof is offered. Just the gratuitous assertion.
Then a garment of Kit Carson’s is one of the objects in the exhibition. Carson is called “controversial.” The designation, while accurate, I think, has nothing to do with the validity of the Carson object appearing. Nor is it explained. Again, just a gratuitous assertion, a way of slipping in the claim that Carson was a bad guy. It should have been omitted.