LET US GO AFIELD 



night, dress gayly, use bright colors. There is a 

 reason for this. White travelers say that in the 

 monotony of nature, all white and black, the eye 

 craves color, that it is a relief amounting almost to 

 a safeguard against insanity. Hence the Indian 

 woman spent much time in embroidering and bead- 

 ing moccasins, leggings, garters, gun covers, and 

 the like. Sometimes she made beautiful fire bags, 

 for ceremonial wear, in which the braves carried 

 their pipes and tobacco examples for which mu- 

 seums sometimes pay good prices today. I have 

 one made by a Mandan woman, who was eighty 

 years old when she did it, and almost the last one 

 of her tribe. She was living then among the Black- 

 feet. Now, when you look at this little pouch of 

 porcupine quills and beads, you ought not to toss it 

 down idly or in contempt. It is a great thing. It 

 takes you back into the history of this country in 

 the time of the old fur trade along the Missouri < 

 indeed, into the days of Lewis and Clark, the hero 

 times of exploration and adventure of which we 

 like to read. Your sportsman's den may perhaps 

 be a school and a library, as well as a receptacle for 

 junk. 



Sometimes one's sporting equipment will gain his- 

 toric value even during one's own lifetime. For 

 instance, here are two examples of the ancient Ken- 



298 



