The San Francisco call., 1904-04-10
o q - o

bsskets-the finest and the very best
that love or money could buy
A great brown bear reared it's mighty
head from the ping-pong table and
claiming and holding it in place were
stone relics of long past ages, curious
headgear, queer ceremonial canes and
the Thousand and one symbolic bits of
handiwork Of the Indian.
Miss Smith meant to turn the house
literally upside down, and she certainly
did. The basement didn't even have
a speaking acquaintance with itself.
for it was co-verted into a great wig
wan, and seated on a pile of blan-
kets was a squaw making baskets as
though her very life depended upon it
and favoring the unusually persistent
with a stolid, Indifferent stare that
somehow or other caused them to move
on.
Everywhere, from the attic to the
basement. did Indian treasures stare
one in the face and invite the closest
Of scrutiny, so that an afternoon in
the Indian house" would be worth a
dozen lessons in Indian lore.
Nor did she stop here. She turned
Indian herself. Really. truly Indian;
not half way. She covered her fair
hair with a great black wig, stained
her face a dusky hue and touched it
up with red and disguised herself so
completely that her best friends had
to stop, look twice and finally wind up
by asking who ii was. And so il was
with every maid that received with
her. Not one 'paleface' extended
welcoming hand nor contributed in any
way toward the fun, for amusement
there was in plenty. There were wild
dances. weird incantaticns, strange
ceremonies and queer sounding gut
tural noises and songs, everywhere, in
fact, that. she had ever heard of or
that her friends knew anything about.
So it happened for once that society
was surprised. 1t was more, for it
was simply thunderstruck to see the
girls forsake their dainty frocks for
the bright caIicoes, the gaudy beads and
the picturesque moccasins of the red
maid. It was paralyzed to see the inn
maculate beaux leave their broadcloth
and fine linen in the closet and ven
ture forth in the buckskins of the In
dian braves. Yet they did it, and had
more fun in shelving conventionalities
than they had had in a month of Sun
days.
And the result of this unique tea
has been a sudden craze for all things
barbaric and showy. The girls dis
covered that barbaric metals were just
the vOy things they had been search
ing for and they straightway appro-
priated all the symbolism, colors.
handiwork and material of the alb
original, so that every way one turns
these days the eye is fairly dazzled by
the primary colors and designs in
satchels. bags. cardcases, fobs, chains.
bracelets, and, forsooth, in every i'm
aginable article.
The craze for beadwork is mild
compared to that of metals. Golf
sticks and other trite designs in metal
are old, the rage being for the heavy
bracelet, the tiara, comb. waist but
tons, etc. made by the Indians. Mex
leo is so near. just over the border, the
routes so easily traversed, the mining
and excavating passion so intense,
that travelling is a luxury. and the
tourist. well informed through pic
turesaue official literature, digs, delves
and finds precious stones such as opals,
turquoise. perodates and rubies, and
the ever lovely matrix, in subtle
shades of green.
As a consequence old silver rings