I I O Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XVII I , 



hourglass-shaped figure is a bed. The green portion is grass- 

 covered ground. The red stripe is a path. The red triangles 

 at the end are again red banks. The small yellow triangles at 

 the ends represent a hill on the Wind River Reservation in 

 Wyoming, which is said to be yellow in appearance, and at 

 which a fight once occurred. It is called niha"nod'ti,". 



In the parfleche shown in Fig. 4, Plate xix, color is more 

 important than form, so far as s5mibolism is concerned. The 

 blue represents mountains; this is presumably both on ac- 

 count of its color and because the blue areas are all obtuse 

 iosoceles triangles, the usual symbol for a mountain. The red 

 represents fruit or berries. The yellow, wherever it occurs 

 on the parfleche, represents wood, especially willow on 

 account of its yellowish-green bark. In addition, the colors 

 used here also represent all objects having those colors. 

 The acute red triangles also represent flame. The red, yel- 

 low, and blue acute triangles represent tents. The white and 

 red pentagonal areas within the blue represent the door or 

 opening in the mountain from which the buffalo originally 

 issued on the earth. The long straight lines represent rivers. 



Fig. 5, Plate xix, shows a parfleche design that is not very 

 frequent, but old. It is called wasixta ("bear-foot"). It 

 was said to be the oldest of the parfleche designs, and to have 

 been invented by Whirlwind- Woman, the first woman on 

 earth. All the points or projections represent bear-claws. 

 The lines enclosing the whole design, and forming a square, 

 represent the camp-circle. 



In the parfleche design shown in Fig. 6, Plate xix, the two 

 long isosceles triangles along the sides represent mountains. 

 At each end of the design are three acute triangles, which 

 represent tents. To each belongs one half of the diamond 

 adjoining its vertex, this half-diamond being the projecting 

 tent-poles. At the corners of the middle diamond are two 

 small black triangular marks, which represent the rope passed 

 around the poles near their tops to hold them together. The 

 two middle tents also have their doors shown. In the other 

 triangles, blue circular spots denote the place or situation of 

 the tent. The entire square of the design is the earth. The 



