Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/40

INTRODUCTION children in the fifth. With the Indian a sense for form and color is inborn. The hand that has woven for generations the matchless basket, perfect in symmetry and beautiful in design, wields the white man’s pencil with delicacy and sweeping certitude. Even when painting for the first time, the untutored draughtsman lays the color on the paper as evenly as though drilled to the task. The technique of all art handwork is the Indian’s by nature. But technique is only the offspring of a larger gift which fashions the imagery of cloud, rain, star, and growing com into symbol, and of symbols composes decorative designs both beautiful and meaningful. The Indian is artistic by nature. His art is not a luxury of the cultured few, but the unconscious striving of the many to make beautiful the things of daily living.

The child race of a by-gone age has left no written record of its thoughts. Silent through the ages has passed barbaric man. The voices that greeted the sunrise of the race have died away without an echo. A bit of broken pottery, a bone-awl, an arrow-head, a grave-mound, mute testimonies these of the art, the industry, the life, the death of man in the long ago. A footprint only tells of his passing. And of his thoughts? The lips of the past are closed forever on the mystery. Of value, then, to the history of the human race, as well as to the history of America, are the written utterances of this primitive people.

In music, art, and letters, as well as in history and archaeology, should The Indians’ Book find a place. Here may we look into the mind of a race utterly unlike any other in the world. Indian thought presents material absolutely unique. What other nation has in its midst a like opportunity for inspiration ? Let us pause in the stress of our modern life to listen to the ancient lore of our own land. From the heart of the nature-world speaks the voice of man proclaiming deity. The Indian’s religious thought, uttered with the simplicity of childhood, is born of his recognition of spirit in every form of life, and his conception of an omnipotent and all-pervading divine power is entirely spiritual and impersonal. The Indian has a message for the seekers after truth who welcome, whatsoever its form, the recognition of God by man. And if there