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Show COMMISSIONER OH' INDIAN AFFAIRS. 11 finest architecture on earth is a heritage from the Greeks, and sur-charged with symbolic associations with Olympus worship. All these survivals have their value even to our unromantic age. In striving to divorce the Indian radically from his past in matters of mere form, are we not liable to overlook some weightier considera-tions? ' It was not long ago that an eminent American illustrator discovered in a young Indian woman so distinct a manifestation of genius in art that, although she had been educated in the East, she was sent back, on his advice, to live a while among her own people, study their picturesque side, and make drawings of themselves and their life for future use. We can imagine our hyperpractical critic throw-ing up his hands in horror at the suggestion of exposing this girl to the degrading atmosphere of her childhood home. So should we all revolt at the idea of driving her back into the existence she would have led if no kind, friend had taken her away originally. But she had been trained among good white people; she had reached an age when she would be able to appreciate the difference between the old ways and the new, and to the latter's advantage; and she was a woman of refined instincts and strong character. If she were ever going to be able to withstand the bad influences of frontier life she could do it then. She cherished, moreover, that wholesome pride of race which we are bound to respect wherever we find it, and which enabled her to enter sympathetically into the line of art study assigned to her as no one could who had not shared her ancestry and her experience. At a gathering of white philanthropists, where several Navaho blankets of different weaves and patterns were exhibited, I was aston-ished to hear one of the most thoughtful persons present propose that a fund should be raised for supplying the Navaho with modern power looms so as to build np their special industry. My suggestion that the wool raised by the Indians was not of a quality which would answer for Ene work was promptly met by the assurance that it would be a simple matter to send Connecticut-made raw materials out to Arizona, as is already done to some extent. I ventured to sug-gest that this programme be completed by sending some New England mill hands to weave the blankets, since that was all that would be necessary to eliminate the Indian from thc proposition altogether. The argument was not carried further. The Navaho blanket derives its chief value not from being a blanket, but from being a Navaho. The Indian woman who wove it probably cut and seasoned the saplings which framed her rude loom and fastened the parts in place. She strung her warp with her own hands. She sheared and carded and spun and dyed the many-colored threads of her woof. S h e thought out her own design as she worked, and carried |
