462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
principally in the construction of houses, corrals, and shelters. The 
wood is so soft that it burns almost as rapidly as paper and produces 
an intense heat but of short duration. The large trees seem immune 
to destruction as long as left to the native people, who are apparently 
baffled by their size. In some localities one sees men going miles to 
dig mesquite roots, an operation requiring the hardest kind of labor, 
while along the roads lie huge trunks of fallen cottonwoods, untouched 
because the people do not know how to cut them up. 
Best known among all the handiwork of the North American 
Indians are the splendid rugs made by the Navahos, whose reserva- 
tion occupies the northwest corner of New Mexico. These blankets, 
whose workmanship would be a credit to any civilized people, notwith- 
standing the crude methods of their manufacture, are noted for the 
permanence and harmony of their colors. To-day the raw wool is 
colored with imported synthetized dyes, but formerly all the colors 
of the blankets, like those of other similar articles, were obtained from 
native plants or mineral substances. ted was produced by a decoc- 
tion of the mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus parvifolius), the 
powdered bark of the alder (Alnus tenuifolia), and the ashes of the 
cedar (Juniperus monosperma and J. utahensis). Yellow was 
obtained by rubbing the wool with a paste made from the roots of 
cafiaigre or by using an extract of the flower heads of rabbit brush 
(Chrysothamnus spp.). Black was produced by a decoction of the 
leaves and berries of the lemita (Schmaltzia trilobata) combined with 
calcined gum of the pinyon. Other tribes elsewhere in the State used 
different plants to secure the same results. 
There is not ‘space here to enumerate any of the plants used 
medicinally by the Indians; indeed but little is known or probably 
ever will be known of this subject. To almost every plant some real 
or fancied medicinal virtue was assigned. While many of these uses 
were purely empirical, others doubtless were based on some substratum 
of fact. There is a common herb which is reputed throughout all the 
West and Southwest to be a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake. 
Others were used to treat the stings of venomous insects and of 
spiders and scorpions. Nor is there space for the mention of any of the 
forage plants, in whose variety and abundance consists New Mexico’s 
greatest natural resource, furnishing sustenance to thousands of head 
of stock each year. A second great asset lies in the extensive forests 
which cover all the mountains. Those plants which are here briefly 
noted are but the most conspicuously interesting ones, but there 
remain many more which are equally. or more deserving of mention 
and may be shown by investigation and exploration to be more useful 
to man. 
The photographs for plates 4A, 6, and 12, were courteously supplied 
by the Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture. They were 
made by Mr. Vernon Bailey. 
