II.— DECORATIVE ART. 



The present chapter is a description of the various objects 

 of Arapaho manufacture and use, omitting, however, all 

 objects whose use is ceremonial or religious. This account 

 will deal largely with the ornamentation of the objects and 

 with the significance attached to this decoration. The in- 

 terpretation of these symbolic decorations was obtained, in 

 every case dealt with, from the Indians. Almost always the 

 information was secured from the possessor or the maker of 

 the article. The specimens described are now in the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History. 



In the illustrations, colors are indicated by the following 

 devices: red, by close vertical shading; yellow, by light dots; 

 green, by horizontal shading. Light blue is indicated by 

 diagonal shading. Black usually represents dark blue, but 

 sometimes brown, very dark green, dark red, or black. Dark 

 dots indicate orange. 



Plate I is arranged to show the conventionality of orna- 

 mentation in moccasins. All the moccasins illustrated in this 

 series are embroidered with the same fundamental decorative 

 motive, — a longitudinal stripe extending from instep to 

 toe. It will be seen that in this series of eight moccasins only 

 three other decorative elements are used; and these, more- 

 over, are similar to the fundamental element, in that ifhey 

 also are stripes, and bear a definite spatial relation to it, 

 being either parallel or at right angles to it. These three 

 elements are a transverse stripe at the instep, two short 

 bars approximately parallel to the main central stripe, and a 

 transverse stripe bisecting and duplicating this main stripe. 



[36] 



