The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1897-09-02

side and carried with improvised twigs
OF sticks into the s%udatory.
OF late years a few Of the progressive
Navahoes have built rectangular stone
houses with fiat roofs, wooden doors
end glazed windows, like those of their
reighbors, the Mexicans and Pueblo
Indians. When a human being dies
they believe the house is haunted or
acctrsed. They abandon it, never en-
ter it again, and usually destroy it.
This DR.. Matthews points out as the
probable reason that they have been
SO late in adopting the form of houses,
of which they have had examples be-
fore them for centuries.
They have very few arts. They make
a ride and inaftistic pottery. Their
bows and arrows are inferior to those
of the northern Indians, and, since
they have both money and opportunity
to purchase modern firearms, are fall
ing into disuse. They do not consider
themselves very expert dressers of
deerskin and purchase their best buck
skin from other tribes. Their basket
ry, however, is excellent, but of a linn
tied range of forms and patterns. But
they buy most of their baskets from
n%eighboring tribes, and would lose
the art altogether if they did not re-
quire certain kinds to be used in their
rites, for which only the women of the
tribe understand the special require
ments. They work silver on a rude
forge, but the art is probably Of recent
requirement.
1t is in weaving that they excel all
other Indians within the borders of the
United States. In durability, fineness
OF finish, beauty of design and variety
OF pattern the Navajo blanket has no
equal among the arts of our aborigines
An important new invention has been
made or introduced within a few years
"a way of weaving blankets with diff
ferent designs on both sides. But at
the same time the art has detoriorated
through the substitution of fugitive
anilline dies for the permanent native
dies formerly used, and, in the white
blankets, yarns obtained from white
traders nave been substituted for the
yarns laboriously twilled on the old
dlstaff. They weave diagonal cloth
and acknowledged d%iagonals, belts
or sashes, carriers and saddle girths. 1t
is not only for gain that a Navajo
woman weaves her blanket. Having
worn it until it has lost it's novelty she
may sell 1t for a price that scarcely
pays for the yarn. The work is done
to no small extent for artistic recrea-
ton, and the possessor of large herds
Will weave as ~assiduously as her poor
er neighbor. The mn knit stock
ings, using four needles. AS the latter
are made of wire and obtained from the
whites 1t might be thought that the
art of knitting was also learned from
them, but knitted leggings made of
una hair and wooden knitting nee
dies have been found in Navajo land,
in cliff dwellings, which there is rea-
son to believe were abandoned before
the arrival of the Spaniards. Speci-
mems of these knitted leggings may be
seen in the Cliff Dweller collection
in the Museum of the University of
Pennsylvania.
DR.. Matthews gives a good reputa-
ton for industry to the Navajo men
and states that begging is little prac-
ticed by them.
He prefaces his description of their
poetry and music by an extract from
a letter written by DR.. Jonathan Leth-
erman and published in the Smithson-
ian Report for 1855, which for many
years was the most trusted account of
the Navajo Indians of New Mexico and
Arizona. "Of their religion little or
nothing is known, as indeed, all in
quiries tend to show that they have
none. They have no knowledge of the
origin or history of their tribe. They
have frequent gatherings for dancing.
Their singing is a succession of grunts
anything but agreeable. (.