The sun., 1903-12-06
MANY BOGUS INDIAN RELICS.
MAKING THEM A FLOCRISHING
TRADE IN THE SOUTHWEST.
The Demand for Prehistoric Pottery ana
Weapons Anons white Tourists Led
10 an Unfaiiing Supply-Graduate
OF Indian schools In the Industry.

Weapons AniOng Wnlte TOursts Leu
10 an Unfaiiing supply-Grsduate
of Indian schools In the Industry.
Los ANaELEs, Cal, Dec. 2.--The person
who wants to know what education Is doing
for some Indians ought to go to the South
west Territories There he would see how
graduates OF Government Indian schools
have returned to the parental adobes or
wickiups and are showing the old folks
how to make money.
At nearly every railroad station from
Albuquerque. n. NJ, to San Bernardino'
Cal, where the overland trains make long
waits, there are Indian girls who peddle pre-
historic pottery made few days before.
At the trsnscontinental railroad stationsin
Nevada and Utah there are parties OF In
dians who sell tourists beaded moccasins,
bits of feathered head-dresses and long
strings of beads which purport to have
descended from long line of mighty war
riors. but were really made specially for
the palefaces' cash.
In southern Arizo ma the Apaches, Coco
pas and Y,snas are winning the white
mans money by selling him stone and
clay idols and crude bows and arrows
that the buyer is led to believe came from
tombs of aboriginal chiefs. Vases and
urns are sold as relics OF the Cliff dwellers.
Even the debased Hualipis and the lazy
Maricopahs sell ragged, moldy remnants
Of grass woven sandals, bucklers and buck
skin moccasins and leggins as exhumed
relics of race that lived in towers through
the Salt River Valley several thousand
years ago. All these things are manufaot-
ured by suuaws, and the CRIME and wear
of ages is successfully counterfeited in
them.
The large sums paid by museum curators
for specimens Of ancient Zufi pottery
dozen years ago started the manufacture OF
prehisto oric relics in the Southwest. Sew
eral Carlisle Indian School graduates from
Zuhi made big money by digging open
buried tombs OF dead tribal chiefs.
When the supply OF prehistoric material
ran out and the demand in the East was as
large as ever, the young Zufiis saw possi
bilities in maxim prehistoric wares. Thus
it came about that the Zuhis we're the
originators of the ancient aboriginal curio
manufacture.
The news of the profit that there is in
the business spread to Acoma, thence to
Laguna, thence TO Isleta, and on to the
llttle DueDlOS ulOIH VIC Uio u IN up
around about Santa Fa A few years later
the Apaches found that their ancient tribal
weapons we're in good demand in curio
stores Forthwith the manufacture Of old
warclubs began
The Hualipis were told OF the profits OF
making these aboriginal weapons. After
a while they also had ready for market
quantity of still older carved clubs which
4 49,. I.,o, Il, fr1, tba.
ruins of the buried Toltec Pompeiia of the
Arizona deserts.
The counterfeiting of pre-Columbian
pottery is fine art among the Pueblos of
New Mexico They know lot of ways to
deceive even critical curio buyers. Some
of these they keep secret, but a few are
known.
With smoky fires the CRIME OF ages is
put on a vase made but yesterday. Burial
for few weeks in damp soil gives dank.
musty odor to a clay effigy that some squaw
nodded. Chipping away the rude edges
of bowl gives the appearance of use long
ago
As for marking the counterfeit relics
with clumsy pictures. reptiles, beasts and
birds seen on the desert that is easy. Indian
art is about what it was. The cruder the art
and more incongruous the oolors, 50 much
more is the specimen priced as a sure enough
product of the misty past.
"Why, even some of the greatest museums
of the world have specimens OF recently
made prehistoric Indian pottery: said
former Territorial Governor, the other
day. Il have seen counterfeit ancient
Pueblo work in Berlin and Paris and In
several American cities.
"A dozen college museums in the United
States have pottery supposed to have come