The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1904-12-16
KEY TO INDIAN DESIGNS.
METHODS EMPLOYED BY THE
ARTISTS OF THE WILDERNESS.

What Is Told in the Curious Figures
on the Baskets and the Pottery
Shape, Color and Lines All Have
Significance.
The southwestern barbarian is an
artist. Though a member OF the
primeval school, his talents and ac-
complishments are far from mean. IL
his works are not generally appreciat-
ed, sage the Los Angeles Times, it is
because they are not generally under
stood One needs but the key to learn
that it contains all the elements or
true art, In it are found beauty, grace,
harmony, ideality, pathos, sublimity.
picturesqueness fitness, order, proper
tion-and in addition to these, the
bizarre, the weird and the mysterious.
The art of the American Indian is
manifest principally in the decora-
tive. He lacks most of anything, var
iety in methods of expressing his
aesthetic ideas. His highest attain
ment in aesthetic expression is in
form. His pottery, and baskets have
been shaped in the most artistic OF
designs. In color, circumstances have
limited him and his combinations and
blendings have favored the bizarre
rather than the delicate and harmon
ious.
In the shape and designs of baskets,
OF pottery, of utensils and other ar
ticles in stone; in the decorations up
on pottery; in color scheme in these
decorations; in the color and patterns
in blankets and other woven articles;
beadwork; in ornamentation Of wear
ing apparel; in rock painting and rock
carving; in inlaid work; in shell cary
ing and shell combinations; in shaping
of silver ornaments and jewelry OF
other metals and materials; in the cut
ting of turquois and other gem stones,
are found the chief expressions of the
artistic nature of the Indians of the
west
AS has been remarked, one needs
the key to the art of the red man to
fully appreciate it. One may view an
ola or a basket and admire, in a
casual way, it's graceful contour, it's
peculiar coloring, it's odd designs, and
turn away with but slight thrill of
pleasure Let the maker of that ar
ticle interpret the significance Of
those colors, pattern and shape, and
he has found feast for his soul.
There are poems, histories and
creeds woven into every Indian bas-
ket and imprinted upon every dec
Grated piece of pottery. Those curl
Gus figures are trying to tell you
story. The shape of the vessel or
basket tells. when one has the key,
tor what purpose it was created,
whether it was designed for the house
hold, for sacred use-and If for the
latter, for what particular deity or &C.
casion-or to be the repository of the
jewels and precious belongings OF it's
possessor. The colors even tell stories
of their own.
The Indians designs are very ex-
pressive. A few lines signify a great
deal. A horizontal line with half
circle arching over it may mean:
There came great food and it
spread all over the land" Then an
upward curving line, with three short
perpendicular lines resting therein,
will tell that: Three OF our ancestors es-
capped the flood in big canoe and
were brought safely to land"
Colors have three Specifications
when used in decorations, one relating
to things, one relative to time, ore of
direction. In the first relation, red
means triumph or success; blue means
failure; black signifies death; white
stands for happiness or peace. Rela-
tive to direction, white stands for the
east, because the sky grows white in
the east at the rising of the sun; blue
represents the west, because in that di-
rection are the blue waters of the
Pacific; yellow is the symbol of the
north, for the light of the morning
is yellow in the winter time, when the
sun rises further to the northward
red signifies the south, because that
is the region of summer and the red
sun.
From this Interpretation of color it
is easy to calculate what the time
Specifications are. White may stand
for the morning, or for the springtime;
blue is the evening-the time of the
setting sun, or autumn, the season
of cerulean skies; yellow is winter,
the season of the northern sun. or
noon, when the earth is flooded with
yellow light; red is the summer, be-
cause it symbolizes the land of sum-
mer 1t is also considered sacred
oolor haoauco II 10 cvnho1ic of hlood