The Washington times., 1907-07-28

4 round ornament near the ten
iepresents the skull OF head Of a child = ',Eg
ornament, consisting Of two strips OF hide con-
nected by quill-wrapped strips in colors. repre-
,sents the childs, hair At the lower part are
long qulI-covered thongs. representing ribs
Then there are strips to stand for Iegs PED
represents blood, black the hair of youth. whits
that of age OF the sticks forming tho frame
work inside the cradle one is peeled. the other
unpeeled The unpeeled one denotes that the
child is yet helpless, undeveloped; the peeled
one hints at its subsequent mo polished con-
dition.
There are hundreds Of these symbolisms. I,
Is impossible in brief space TO explain more than
few.
Some Of the most used are the simple char
aeters denoting person the heart and lungs,
the head. the eye. the human track and the buff
falo track the eagle and thunderbird the snake
and lizard. the fish, butterfly. cattle tack noun
tam, river, spring. etc.
They look simple, these markings, and
ret one without these centuries of intuition back
4 him could not decipher them OF make them
There came a little Arapahoe girl TO the
school the other day and entered Miss Decora's
class. what can you make 2" she was asked
She replied that she didn't know
With a piece of paper and some colored
crayOns she set to work and in a little while had
made a design for q rug. which she bashfully
showed She had used neither ruler nor COM
pass-none Of these artists stoops to mechanical
aids-and yet she had a very weIl-balanced crea-
tiop, with its centerpiece, its border design and
its various strips and sections accurately drawn
But best Of all Miss Decora discovered
I'm It a beautiful story-it was made up OF over
q dozen varieties Of sign writing-and il needed
no words 70 tell her what It represented.
T. brought tears TO ler eyes, for Il told her
that thenew little pupil already loved her. How
lid r. tell this?
The outer border design was made up of the
lightning symbol zig-zag line-and the very
center contained the figure Of the mythical thun-
derbird.
Now, this little pupil was Of the lightning
'ribe and Miss Decora Is Of the thunderbird
tribe. So the outer design encoInpassing the
inner one bespoke p real love.
Then there Is 2 Pueblo boy who came and
vas told 70 follow his own natural inclination
And the first thing he did was to sit down and
draw rapidly, with colored crayons, a sort Of
prehistoric monster with yellow scales all over
its body and a great tail forked at the end and
blue wings and a frightful looking head with
-anCs protruding.
About the nearest thin one could hken II
% would be Chinese dragon.
The boy explained that the scribe OF the
Pueblo village where he dwelt had once drawn
II for him, that it had been painted ages and
ages ago on the walls of a cavern where tribal
ceremonies are held, and that there was = Won
derful story about it. But what that story Is
he wouldn't tell-that was the secret Of his
people.
To the jamestown Exposition Miss Deco-a
has taken some examples of the work. and TO the
Pacific slope has sent others
Miss Decora was born on reservation u
the Winnebago Sioux, thirty miles from s ''<
City in a wigwam, and when she was yet a c'.ll
was picked up by stranger near her homo and
taken for a long ride in the steam cars.
When she hunted up her mother in lat a
she was told that her parents had not givr'' nv
one permission to take her, she mus n7ve
been stolen Anyway. she found hers Z
Hampton, Va. where she remained in the l-.' n
School a few years. then went to the Nor ~-p-
ton School for Girls in Massachusetts,. anH "a
to Smith College.
Art was crying to her, and she thoual
might become a landscape painter. So she went
to the Drexel School in Philadelphia, ?nd lar
studied under various private instructors.
One of the greatest artists under who're she
worked for a long time was Howard Pyle, and
while yet in Philadelphia she studied with Cliff
ford P. Grayson. the sculptor Crafty and D. W.
Train.
Then she went to Boston and studied with
Joseph De Camp. Edna G. Tarb"ll and Be-