122 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XVIII, 



tent-pegs. The series of six black spots, which is repeated 

 four times, denotes that Whirlwind- Woman successively sat 

 down in six places around the bag that she was painting with 

 this design. In a similar manner, a parfleche is sometimes 

 painted by four women sitting on four sides of it, so that the 

 hide does not have to be turned to be painted at all its ends. 

 The ten black diagonal lines in the white stripe that longitu- 

 dinally bisects the design were the last marks made in process 

 of painting.' 



On the back of this bag a rectangle formed or enclosed by 



double green lines 

 represents the 

 whole earth. The 

 lines themselves 

 are also rivers. Al- 

 ternating red and 

 blue transverse 

 lines, which divide 

 the rectangle into 

 eight parts, are 

 buffalo-paths lead- 

 ing to the river. 

 The red denotes 

 meat of the buffa- 

 lo, the blue (equiv- 

 alent to black) 

 represents buffalo- 

 hides. 



Fig. 36 shows 

 the two sides of 

 another food-bag. The pattern on the front is longitudinally 

 bisected by a narrow unpainted stripe, which represents 

 a river. Several small black marks in this stripe represent 

 dried meat; /. e., the contents of this bag. The triangles 

 are all mountains. Of the colors, red and yellow signify 



Fig. 36 i.Hii. Design on Bag. Width of bag, 47.2 cm. 



^ The black, brown, or dark-blue thin lines with which the colored areas painted 

 on rawhide are usually bordered, are put on after the colored areas, not before. Their 

 purpose seems to be, not to assist the maker in the application of the colors, but to give 

 to the colored areas a sharper outline. 



