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. Red 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 

 canaigre 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 4 A, 6, and 12.4, were courteously supplied 

 by the Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture. They were 

 made by Mr. Vernon Bailey. 



