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The papoose
Vol. I. No. 2. (January, 1903)
A rare collection, pp. 4-9
Page 8
shell with a white decoration of a reversed tomahawk made from the same shell. These beads are of uniform size of one eighth of an inch in diameter by a length of one quarter to three eighths of an inch, tediously bored with drills of flint and rounded by rubbing on sand stone. The belt contains about fifteen hundred beads and is a monument to the in- dustry of the patient squaw. The belt was given to Mr. Kep- pler in trust for the tribe to whom it belonged. A life sized figure in full costume gives a perfect knowledge of the use of all the articles of dress and ornament made by the aborigine and stands guard over the huge fireplace where on chilly evenings a cheerful blaze sheds a mellowed light over the room. Vests of buckskin, solidly beaded and worked out in designs symbolizing the prowess of the warriors who wore them, hang side by side with marvelously decorated papoose carriers. Blanket straps with coloring that shows the Indian in his most artistic vein, some with designs in turquoise blue and wine colored beads, others in soft greens and yel- lows, hang upon the wall on every side. The Katchina of the Hopi, lends an additional color to the walls, while over the tall glass case of priceless bead work is grouped a collection of baskets from Alaska in the north to New Mexico in the south. Here again Mr. Keppler has shown the same care in selection as in his bead collection. Not a basket but what contains some symbol that has its meaning. The dainty feathered Pomo, the Tulare, brown and rich with age, the Hoonah of Alaska, with its fret of Greek design, the Apache with its story of the hunt, close round the romantic and mysterious Medicine basket of the Navajo. Nor is the Mission basket of California missing for several fine specimens of the Cahuilla of Southern California, from Sabo- ba, made famous in story by Helen Hunt Jackson are classified with the baskets of the Manzanitas, the makers of which, hounded from pillar to post by land grabbers, sought the moun- tains bare and rocky save for stunted chapparel of manzanita and mountain mahogany, tediously constructed from the ma- terials at hand these wonderful baskets of the once powerful Dieguanos. In an alcove stands a mortar for the crushing of corn, three feet in height by eighteen inches in diameter, with its heavy wooden pestles -the grist mill of the Iroquois. Its worn, hollowed center speaks of many bushels of corn that have been crushed into meal to feed the long since dead and forgotten red man. Of silver work the Navajo has furnished a collection of bracelets, concho buttons, bow string guards and belts of linked disks hammered from Mex- ican coins and graven with signs and symbols. The Iroquois furnish a fine collection of earrings and brooches, fashioned to represent birds and beasts, the council fire and the planets,
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