THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



while the southern and western portions of the hall contain 

 typical material secured from the Nomadic Indians. 



The Village tribes include the Hidatsa, Mandan, Santee- 

 Dakota, Osage, Iowa, Pawnee and Wichita, and excellent 

 examples of their handicraft, consisting of decorated par- 

 fleches, used for packing clothing, interesting types of bas- 

 ketry, skin vessels, horn spoons, samples of pottery, 

 clothing, decorated buffalo robes and implements used in 

 their games and ceremonials, are displayed. 



Representative of the symbolic designs used in their va- 

 rious decorated articles, is a miniature baby board in the 

 Pawnee series. This baby board is symbolic in the sense 

 that it was not made for actual use but was given to a little 

 girl at a ceremony as a part of the prayer for her future 

 well-being. If in the future children should be born to 

 her, a larger board would be made after this pattern. The 

 designs at the head of the board represent the morningstar 

 surrounded by rainbows, the idea being that a child placed 

 on such a board would be under the direct protection of the 

 morningstar, eveningstar and the four gods in the west, — 

 lightning, thunder, clouds and wind. 



On the top of the right-hand wall case may be seen the 

 primitive round "bull" boats, made by stretching buffalo 

 skins over wooden frames, used by the Hidatsa Indians, 

 and near the center aisle a model of a Hidatsa earth-lodge 

 from the original formerly standing on the Fort Berthold 

 Reservation, North Dakota, which well depicts in miniature 

 the home life of this tribe. 



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