Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/497

Rh ; only the Shoshone see in them pictures of forts and stones piled up in memory of battles; only the Arapaho recognize in them prayers for life directed to the morning star.

We find, therefore, that in this area the same style of art is widely distributed, while the style of explanation differs materially among its various tribes.

It may be worth while to review briefly the distribution of the style of art here discussed. On the whole, it is confined to the Plains Indians, west of the eastern wooded area. It would seem that it has been carried into the plateau region rather recently, where, however,

it has affected almost all the tribes east of the Cascade Range and of the Sierra Nevada. We find the acute triangle with small supporting triangles, and the obtuse triangle with enclosed rectangle, in the characteristic arrangement of the parfleches, on a bag of the Nez Percés (Fig. 10) collected by Dr. Livingston Farrand. At first glance, the art of the Pueblos seems quite different from the one that we are discussing here; but I believe that an intimate association of the two may be traced. The old pottery described by Dr. Fewkes, for instance, shows a number of the peculiar triangle and square motives which are so characteristic of the art of the Indians of the Plains. The same triangle with supporting lines, the same triangle with the enclosed square (Fig. 10), is found here. It seems very plain to my mind that the transfer of this art from pottery to embroidery and painting on flat surfaces has brought about the introduction of the triangular