THE ART OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
BY WALTER PACH
FOR the tragedies of the past we are too late—the individual has been lost; the free people with its ancient culture has been destroyed by the brutality and ignorance of the invader; its story goes into history and literature, and at some distant time the tangible relics of its life are collected and ranged on the shelves of a museum. Usually the sole value they have there is to serve as models for the men of a later age, and it is a questionable value, for they will lead astray the many who see only the externals of the old works and ideas—the insight which permits a crossing of the barriers of time and race being reserved for the few who can penetrate to the spirit of an ancient people and thereby strengthen their own.
But there is another value for history and the museum. If we cannot intercede in the tragedies of the past, we can see in them a warning against needless wrong in present times. Such a wrong may occur in America, in the case of the Indians of our Southwest. For most of us the question of the Indian has seemed a thing of the past. He is on his reservations and should be well treated by the Government, all will agree, but few of us know that in certain localities—very considerable ones—his ancient life and culture still exists under the threat of extinction.
Some people will say that the threat comes from circumstance, from evolution. The West is growing up, and even if the Indians keep their land, the ideas of the white man must enter their territory and drive out the old ideas. It is true that the nomadic tribes that peopled the greater part of America can no longer continue in their ancient state. But the question of the Indians of the Southwest is entirely different. Historically they are a sedentary race, like the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico and Central America. They are city-builders, and as such could develop forms of culture and art which are impossible to rovers. Of the music, the poetry, and the drama which expressed the ideas of the northern Indians it is not easy to speak, for much has been lost, and there remain the difficulties of language, its rhythm and its allusions, which prevent all save a few
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