I902-] Kroeber, The Arapaho.. 1 23 



earth; blue, haze or smoke. The decoration on the back 

 consists of two very different halves. One half is painted 

 in blue and yellow ; the other seems merely sketched in 

 outline in brown, having an unfinished appearance. It 

 was, however, made thus intentionally. The two halves 

 are also different in design. This lack of symmetry is ex- 

 ceptional. The colored half represents inhabited country; 

 the uncolored, a country that is wild and uninhabited. In 

 the colored half the flat, low, blue triangles are mountains, the 

 pentagonal areas in them being lakes. The six acute tri- 

 angles are also lakes. The yellow in these triangles repre- 

 sents vegetation in autumn. The blue lines enclosing the 

 design are streams of water. 



The uncolored design is enclosed by blue lines representing 

 the sky, and itself represents distant scenery. The triangles 

 are mountains. Small triangles in two of these represent 

 caves; small squares in two of the others are camp-sites. 

 The T-shaped figures on these same triangles represent imagi- 

 nary figures of persons seen on mountain-tops. 



The entire bag also represents a mole. The opening of the 

 bag is the mouth of the mole. Four loose strips of red cloth 

 at the corners of the bag are its legs. Two small painted 

 triangles not shown in the illustration are the ears of the 

 animal. 



In the bag illustrated in Fig. 37 the spaces between the 

 figures on the front side are not left white and unpainted, as 

 is generally the case, but are colored yellow. This yellow 

 represents daylight. All the triangles on this side, as well 

 as the diamond in the middle, represent mountains. The 

 interior of the diamond, and the interior of the equilateral 

 triangles touching the diamond, represent caves. Round 

 spots on the four triangles nearest the corners of the bag are 



rocks. 



On the back, blue lines are buffalo-paths, blue diamonds in 

 these are buffalo- wallows. Blue triangles are very high 

 mountains, while yellow triangles were said to be that por- 

 tion of these mountains which is underground. 



A small square bag of hide is shown in Fig. 38. The acute 



