There is one interesting feature connected with this shield-design, and that is the fact that some of the old men disapproved of the owner placing the spider-web design upon the tail of the bird, because it was a mixing of supernatural manifestations. The incident connected with this design was regarded by them as most extraordinary, and as having been worthy of distinct and separate representation. According to the accepted modes of interpretation, this experience should have been represented upon a new shield.
The specimen shown in [Plate vi] is not a shield-cover, but was nevertheless spoken of as a shield; and the design upon it is an old shield-design. The specimen is a cape (made of cotton) worn around the shoulders in such a way that the design could be seen upon the back of the wearer. Here are represented the rainbow, the thunder-bird (possessing in this case characteristics which indicate that it was copied from the national emblem of the United States), the new and full moon, and the stars. It will be observed that the stars in this case are four-pointed, similar to the design of the spider-web, and they are regarded by the Indians as an example of the old original method of representing them.
Fig. 3. Drawing, by a Native, of a Shield-cover.
As a great many Indians who formerly owned shields do not now possess shield-covers, the writer secured drawings made by them of their former shields. Such a sketch is reproduced in outline (Fig. 2). In the centre is a design of the spider-web filled in with red. The ground of the shield is in blue, representing the sky. Above and below are circular areas in yellow, representing clouds or heaven. Lightning-symbols in red connect the yellow cloud-symbols with the four corners of the spider-web design. As a final suggestion relative to this interpretation, the informant said, “The spider is the friend of the thunder.”
Fig. 4. Shield-design, from a Drawing by a Native.
The manner in which the owner secured the shield-design represented in Fig. 3 is as follows. Once when a war-party of which he was a member were about to take the war-path, it was predicted by an old man that he would be killed in the first battle. Before leaving with the party, he went to an old medicine-man for help, and this man made him a shield bearing the design described below. The bird represented is the hawk,—flying from the sky, protected by the thunder from the hailstones that fly thick and fast about him,—and symbolizes the manner in which the owner of the shield will pass safely through the hail of lead from the enemy. Four pairs of hawk-feathers are arranged symmetrically on the circumference of the shield.
In the shield-design in Fig. 4, we find a large circular area in the centre painted yellow and the surrounding portion red. Around the circumference of the yellow portion are black spots, representing tufts of short crow-feathers. Upon the original shield, across the top, there was tied the skin of a weasel, represented in the drawing by a pictograph of that animal. Four pairs of feathers are arranged symmetrically on the circumference of this design.
The design represented by Fig. 5 is rather striking, since an image of the spider is placed in the centre of the shield surrounded by a circle of red, through which the numerous red lines radiate to the circumference of the design. These red lines represent the web of the spider. One end of a string is tied to the mouth of the spider, with an eagle-plume at the other end, painted yellow. Around the circumference of the design is a wavy blue line, representing water. The owner of this design received such a shield when a young man, and stated that he never understood why the medicine-man who made it for him placed the blue line around it, and for that reason he could not explain its significance.