The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-04

OdHiblidbtt NAdSosf OStCb0A pt A"'"'
 Many of the recent visitors to the Pea body Museum of Harvard University stop with particular curiosity before a case that has only lately been added to the Indian collection, and contains repro duction of one of the sand pictures made by present day Navajos in a ceremony at which one of the museum staff had the good fortune to be present. What the visitor sees. however, on looking down through the glass case, appears rather as puzzle than as a bit of original American art reproduced year after year by memory from some remote period whose date can not be definitely settled. The picture represents the four rain gods, one for each of the cardinal points of the compass, and if the drawing itself is almost amusingly archaic, the color treatment of the figures and the various symbols that surround them, well as the decorative effect of the composition as whole, does no small credit to the "poor Indian" as a designer and poster artist.
 In this picture the four rain gods, re- cognizable to the Indian and to the eth- nologist as being of the sterner sex on account of the round masks they wear, are depicted as coming from a southern cloud, blue in color. which rises in turn from a black, white, and yellow line sym bolizing the north, east and west. The god of the north wind is black; of the south wind, blue; of the west wind, yell low and of the east wind, white. Each l T .twlxI .I Tod Nllxp ,r, pouch, containing also a ray of the sum- with which he is supposed to light his pipe and the combination of the sun | with the rain, which the Indian imaglna- tion pictured the gods as sending, Is sym
 bolized by the rainbow colors, red and blue, decorating the tobacco bags. From | the left hand of each figure hands wa ter bottle, a natural emblem of his office. while around the north west and south l sides of the picture is the rainbow, per sonified by a goddess, decorated with
 the square mask by which the Indians differentiate their female from their male
 deities
 Curious, however, as is this bit of Amer | ican symbolism the method by which the Indians paint" their sand picture Is even more interesting. The picture Is only one | of several used in a nine days cere-
 mony which took place in Chaco Canon, | New Mexico. not far from Pueblo Bonito. | The Harvard scientist who witnessed the ceremony was not invited to view 1t as a scientist but rather as temporarily adopted member of q small Indian village with whose members he had ingratiated
 himself not only by tactfully concealing
 any too "civllzed" interest in their pro-
 ceedings, but also by adopting the Indian l dress and manners. The ceremony was
 held primarily to cure two Navajo ln-
 dians. one of whom had lost his voice in
 boyhood through breaking the tribal law
 bv making a mask of one of the gods and dancing in it. and the other a woman
 afflicted with general bodily weakness.
 Neither was cured,-a fact, however, that
 could easily be accounted for on the
 ground that the gods were unwilling, and l need not be counted against the inherent
 medicine of their sand likenesses.
 The sand picture, which exists from | year to year, only in the memory of the l medicine man. was drawn" on the floor ] of a sacred hut especially constructed for
 the purpose its doorway carefully facing | inc east. from which direction, the Indian | helief is. no evil spirit need be expected. The medicine man, whose professional fee
 amounted to several sheep and horses, | had as his advisors and memory assist ants several old men of the tribe who had
 nartioinated in the painting" of many
 a former sand picture. These men sat to- | oetber at one side of the hut and direct
 ed the actual painters" four young men | of the tribe who first laid out a smooth 1 foundation of brown sand, and then start | ing in the direction of this smooth sur face moved outward in either direction
 as the center of the picture was finished. | Each painter took pinch of sand of tha necessary color,-the red white and | yellow being simply powdered rock. the | h1ack combination of red and ground | charcoal. and the blue a mixture of white sand with a little black, giving a soft gravish tlnt-blew on his fingers to re- move all stray particles and dropped what remained upon the required part of the picture by rubbing 1t slowly be- tween thumb and forefinger In this way line by line, and color by color. the nicture came slowly into existence until at the end of six hours finished paint inc" about nine by thirteen feet in size. bad been executed to the satisfaction of tbe chief medicine man and his experi- enced advisers Nothing of the design or coloring except some of the minor adorn-
 nents of the gods clothing had been left to the originality of the artists; the rest followed established precedent.
 Behind the scenes of the ceremony be- fore the two patients were admitted there was another bit of interesting business" if 1t might be called SO; namely, the pre-