File:Image from page 522 of "Bulletin" (1901).jpg

English: Title: Bulletin

Identifier: bulletin3011907smit Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Subjects: Ethnology Publisher: Washington : G. P. O. Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image: BDLL. 30] GRASS HOUSE 505 Graphic delineations are most exten- sively eniploj'ed by the tribes in pictog- raphy (q. V. ),exampIesof which,engraved or painted on rock surfaces, are found in nearly every section of the country. Sim- ilar work was executed by many of the tribes on dressed skins, on birch-bark, and on objects of wood, ivory, bone, horn, and shell. Thedelineationof life forms in dec- orative and symbolicart is hardly less uni- versal than in simple pictography, and is especially exemplified in tlie work of the more advanced peoples, as the pottery of the mound builders and Pueblos, the utensils and the carvings of the tribes of the N. Pacific coast, and ceremonial costumes, and walls and floors of sacred chambers among various tribes. The graphic work of the Eskimo has a pecu- liar interest, since it seems to have been somewhat recently superposed upon an earlier system in which simple geometric figures predominated, and is much more prevalent where these people have been for a long time in contact with the whites, and more especially with the Atha- pascan and other Indian tribes skilled in graph- ic work (Hoff- man ). A special feature of the art of the Eskimo is the engraving of hunting scenes and exploits of various kinds onobjectsof ivo- ry and boneâ works paralleled among the Indian tribes in the S. by such examples as the Thruston tablet (Thruston, Holmes), the Davenport tab- let (Farquharson), and the battle and hunting scenes of the Plains tribes (Mal- lery, Mooney). Skill in graphic work was highly re- garded among many of the tribes, and the artist took particular pride in his work, and when especially successful l)ecame in a sense professional. Usually decorative designs were executed without pattern or copy, and with much directness. The most intricate patterns, applied to earth- enware vessels and other objects, were not sketched out but were di'awn at once, and often with remarkable skill. Among the N. W. coast tribes, however, patterns were often cut out of cedar bark and the conventional life forms worked in their handsome blankets and capes were drawn out full size on a pattern board. The native artist did not draw directly from nature, but kept in view rather the presentation of the idea, delineating it in :t^

Text Appearing After Image: â jf.ii^^i.^jti"'^ OMAHA GRASS HOUSE IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION. the conventional form common to his tribe. He might have been able to jiro- duce a portrait, for example, but the de- sirability of portraiture does not seem to have occurred to him. He might have delineated a species of animal with accu- racy, but was apparently content to sug- gest the particular su])ject of his thought in a striking and forcible though conven- tional manner. See Art, Basketry, Oima- rnent, Painting, Pottery. Among the numerous authorities to be consulted on this topic are Boas, Gush- ing, Fewkes, Holmes, Mallery, Mooney, Murdoch, Nelson, J. and M. G. Stevenson, and Turner in Reps. B. A. E.; Boas, Hoff- man, Mason, and Niblack in Reps. Nat. Mus.; Dixon, Kroeber, Matthews, Swan- ton, Wissler, and others in Memoirs and Bulletins Am. ]\Ius. Nat. Hist.; Farquhar- son in Proc. Davenport Acad. Sci., n,1877- 1880; Grosse, Beginnings of Art, 1897; Haddon, Evolution in Art, 1895; Kroeber in Am. Anthrop., n. s., in, 1901; Moore, various memoirs in Jour. Acad. Xat. Sci. Phila., 1894-1905; Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, i-vi, 1851-57; Thrus- ton, Antiq. of Tenn., 1897; va- rious authors in the ethnological and archeologic- al journals. (w. H. H.) Grass house. A dwelling hav- ing the shape of an old-fashioned beehive, often described by Spanish and French travel- ers of the 16th and 17th centuries, which was the typical habitation of the Gaddoan tribes, except the Pawnee and Arikara. Its construction was begun l)y drawing a circle on the ground, and on the outline setting a number of crotched posts, in which beams were laid. Against these, poles were set very closely in a row so as to lean inward; these in turn were laced with Avillow rods and their tops brought together and securely fastened so as to form a peak. Over this frame a heavy thatch of grass was laid and bound down by slender rods, and at each point where the rods joined an ornamental tuft |0f grass was tied. Two poles, laid at right angles, jutting out in four projecting points, were fastened to the apex of the roof, and over the center, where they crossed, rose a spire, 2 ft high or more, made of bunches of grass. Four doors, opening to each point of the compass, were formerly made, but now, except when the house is to be used for ceremo-

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