Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/609

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THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.
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have found fragments of twenty in one day, and this more than once; but they are not, I think, found in the ordinary clustered graves of the Indians. In single graves, with other odd forms, they have occasionally been found. Fig. 2 is perforated at the middle, and so was intended to be attached to a handle. As a baton-head it would be an attractive object, and, if the staff was further decorated with bright feathers and other trinkets, the whole would be very effective in dance or parade. But what became

Fig. 6.—Stone Ornament representing Human Face. Susquehanna River, Pa.

of them all in the days of the first European settlers? Could it be possible they were still in common use, and yet not one writer make mention of them?

But, besides symmetrically shaping stone into ornamental forms, the Delaware Indian was given to ornamenting the smooth surfaces of objects by series of lines and dots, in such regular manner that the eye is pleased. A simple example of this phase of ornamentation is shown in Fig. 3. This is a common gorget, the outline of which is purely fanciful. But it is rendered more attractive by parallel and oblique lines, arranged in a manner that suggests not so much hap-hazard fancy as the highly conven-