The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-08-12
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION
BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HAsKLN. Director.
waahinGtan. y. c
SANTA rE TURNS HIGHBROW.


doesn't know quite what to make of
the change that is coming over the
place. He does perceive, howeN er,
that he is the object of more atten-
ton than ever before in tn. annals. of
his tribe. since about 1880. when he
engaged in a fer0c Gus little war with
the Spaniards and quite few scalps
changed owners.
Very different is the kind of atten-
ton he gets now. Artists portray Kim
at a dollar an hour. He is painted,
etched, pastelled. crayoned, char
coaled. He is rendered both realisti-
cally and impressionistically. Real
geniuses do pictures of him that cause
him TO gTunt in amazed approval, and
nothing at all.
Professors of Hnguistics peer into
his mouth to see how he talks. Fro
fessors of archaeology dig for the
bones of his ancestors, and offer him
job doing the same. Professors of
history quiz him about his earliest
! recollections, and try to make him re-
peat the tales his grandfather told
him.
He finds it amusing. he finds It
surprising, but above all ne finds it
remunerative. So, on the whole, he
is remarkably patient. Besides, he
believes that most of these artists and
professors are crazy, and like all other
primitive men he regards the insane
with s1perstitious awe. Hence, the
artists and Indians are on very good
terms.
This vogue of the Pueblo Indian has
been growing for several years. The
real seat of it's growth is on Fifth
avenue and elsewhere in New York
Indian pictures are in demand, and so
are Indian goods and antiquities
From one thousand to ten thousand
dollars each is being paid for pictures
painted IN Santa Fe, Taos and else
where in New Mexico. The vivid coll
ors of the southwest and the I'M
spoiled picturesqueness OF It's people
have captured the imagination of the
picture buying public. They have also
capture the imagination of the artists
The painter and his public seem to. be
closer together on this Indian stuff
than they generally are.
Naturally, more painters come every
year to share in the inspiration of
New Mexico. and in the golden har-
vest which waits at the other end of
the line. There are really important
men here. Robert Henri and George
Bellows, the famous impressionists,
Julius Rolshoven, Sheldon Parsons,
Gustave Bauman, and numerous other
men of reputation are spending all or
part, of their time in Santa Fe, while
numerous younger and less well
known men and women have Joined
the local art colony.
The vogue for painting the Indian
is accompanied by one for studying
him. Santa Fe is drawing just as
much talent in the fields of archaeoi-
ogy and linguistics as It is in the field
of art 1t has great collection OF
Spanish and Indian specimens housed
in a Few museum building patterned
after an Indian pueblo. 1t has also
one of the best libraries on linguistics
In the world. These collections, to-
gether with the fact that the living
Indian himself is found within a few
miles Of them, make santa Fe a place
of rare advantage for students Of
primitive life.
John Peabody Harrington, the well
known linquist, is one OF the most i'm
portant men of science now in Santa
Fe. He is the one who peers into
Poor Los mouth to see how his teeth
and tongue work. Sometimes he finds
it necessary to insert q finger and
measure the oral cavity in actual OPP
Grafton. He also makes records of
Indian conversation on smokes paper
and wax.
You might think all Of this would
be something of a bore to the Indians,
and perhaps 1t is, but they tolerate
it. Mr.. Harrington recently had a
number of Indians working for him
on an excavation. Some he would
select every day to sit in the shade of
tree with him so that he might
study their articulation, while the rest
dug in the hot sun. This arrangement
stirred up a keen interest in linQuistics
among the aborigines.
Naturally, this ingress of heavy In
tellect and brilliant talent is subtly
but radically changing the atmosphere
of ancient Santa Fe. This town. which
Is the oldest capital in the United
States, has changed remarkably little
in size during the last two centuries
of its existence, and not so very much
| in appearance. 1t still has some of
the first houses that were built there.
But it has been many things in its day.
First 1t was a Spanish town, where
| Dons of the old school lived in bar
barrie. baronial magnificence, sur
rounded by their slaves and poems,
/ owning vast lands. Then came the
period of the trappers, when the buck
skinned mountain men rode thru the
town. broke up its dances. drank up
| its whisky, and sometimes kidnapped a
few of its not wholly unwilling daugh-
tiers.
Still wilder was the career of Santa
Fe when the wagon trains began
coming across the Santa Fe trail load
| ed with goods and gringoes. When
those wagon trains came to Santa Eel
/
the dances. the drinking. the fights,
the money that was thrown away. tile
havoc that pretty Spanish eyes played
with gringo affections and with the
general peace.
But this too. passed with the COM
| ing of the railroad. And with the
railroad came all OF the necessary,
unlovely things that make up civili-
( zation. Santa Fe became clean. It be-
came moral, eventually it even became
dry. Thu relics of its past were herd
ed into few curio stores and MT
scum. The city seemed TO be set
| Ting down to q ,thnroly commonplace.
utterly uninterestinR, absolutely
American existence. And then the
highbrow began to find IL, and this
eternal town seems now to be enter
ing upon a new phase of its existence.
just as strange and individual in its
way as any of the others.
They say Boston is a lowbrow town
with a highbrow reputation. Santa