(1) The Mexicans have naturally inherited and assimilated Indian lore about plants, animals, places, all kinds of human relationships with the land. Through the Mexican medium, with which he is becoming more sympathetic, the gringo is getting the ages-old Indian culture.
(2) The Pueblo and Navajo Indians in particular are impressing their arts, crafts, and ways of life upon special groups of Americans living near them, and these special groups are transmitting some of their acquisitions. The special groups incline to be arty and worshipful, but they express a salutary revolt against machined existence and they have done much to revive dignity in Indian life. Offsetting dilettantism, the Museum of New Mexico and associated institutions and artists and other individuals have fostered Indian pottery, weaving, silversmithing, dancing, painting, and other arts and crafts. Superior craftsmanship can now depend upon a fairly reliable market; the taste of American buyers has been somewhat elevated.
O mountains, pure and holy, give me
a song, a strong and holy song to bless
my flock and bring the rain!
This is from "Navajo Holy Song," as rendered by Edith Hart Mason. It expresses a spiritual content in Indian life far removed from the We and God, Incorporated form of religion ordained by the National Association of Manufacturers.
(3) The wild freedom, mobility, and fierce love of liberty of the mounted Indians of the Plains will perhaps always stir imaginations—something like the charging Cossacks, the camping Arabs, and the migrating Tartars. There is no romance in Indian fights east of the Mississippi. The mounted Plains Indians always made a big hit in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Little boys still climb into their seats and cry out when red horsemen of the Plains ride across the screen.
See "Apaches, Comanches, and Other Plains Indians," "Mountain Men."
APPLEGATE, FRANK G. Indian Stories from the Pueblos, Philadelphia, 1929. Charming. OP.
ASTROV, MARGOT (editor), The Winged Serpent, John Day, New York, 1946. An anthology of prose and poetry by American Indians. Here are singular expressions of beauty and dignity.
AUSTIN, MARY. The Trail Book, 1918, OP; One-Smoke Stories, 1934, Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Delightful folk tales, each leading to a vista.
BANDELIER, A. F. The Delight Makers, 1918, Dodd, Mead, New York. Historical fiction on ancient pueblo life.