158 AMERICAN EAGLB THE KANSAS TOTEM. tell of a sub-elan of Omaha Indians having "Red Maize" for a totem, and if they ate thereof, even in ignorance, it would cause sickness, not only to them- selves but to their wives and children; and another di- vision of the Omahas had the Elk, and if any part of a male elk was eaten, they would have running sores iSll around their mouth. It looks reasonable that when our tribe emigrated to its new home and con- cluded to separ^ite, one retained the Black Eagle for its totein^, the other,, the Osages, changed theirs to a White Eagle, itansans have nerve enough tp claim anything, so why not take the credit of being the first copyrighter of the Totem, (Eagle), now used by the'United States? To say the least, it is a remarkable thing that tiiis tptem should have the same significance as the story 6f the Garden of Eden: "And the Lord God copi- manded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." In the days that aye being written about, the Indian, then as now, loved gaudy colors. A red blanket for many generations has been to them like what the scarlet neckwear has been to a colored
- .6nch; and so our natives who had scrutinised the
Spaniards, have the d(icorations distributed about their bodies. The forehead, cheeks and chin are painted red; the arms and legs have black rings alter- nated, with red crosses; in fact, they were "i>ainted Indians" in every sense of the word. They all had on some kin i. of, a headgear decorated ^ith feathers.
