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Majoric Polyglamour Sectory 04
Page 03
My men were paddling away with great vigour and were making rapid progress, the river flowing almost all the time northward, with deviations of a few degrees toward the east, in stretches from 2,000 to 6,000 m. in length. We crossed an immense basin 1,500 m. broad with most gorgeous sand beaches. Their formation in small dunes, occasionally with an edge like the teeth of a double comb, was most interesting. Once or twice we came to musical sands such as we had found before. Everywhere on those beaches I noticed the wonderful miniature sand plants, of which I made a complete collection.
The graphic art of the Apache finds expression chiefly in ceremonial paintings on deerskin, and in basketry. Only rarely have they made pottery, their roving life requiring utensils of greater stability. Such earthenware as they did make was practically the same as that of the Navaho, mostly in the form of small cooking vessels. Usually the pictures are painted on the entire deerskin, but sometimes the skin is cut square, and at others ceremonial deerskin shirts are symbolically painted. Occasionally the Apache attempts to picture the myth characters literally; at other times only a symbolic representation of the character is made. In addition to the mythic personages, certain symbols are employed to represent the incident of the myth. These paintings are made under the instruction of a medicine-man and are a part of the medicine paraphernalia. On some skins the most sacred characters in Apache mythology are represented symbolically--Naye{~COMBINING BREVE~}nezgani, the War God; Tubadzischi{~COMBINING BREVE~}ni, his younger brother; Kuterastan, the Creator of All; Stenatlihan, the chief goddess. In fact the symbolism on an elaborately painted deerskin may cover every phase of Apache cosmology.
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