The Art and the Romance of Indian Basketry

The Art and the Romance of Indian Basketry - Clark Field Collection, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, 1964

The purpose that a foreword serves to the reading public is ostensibly to express its writers endorsement of the material presented and of the mode of treatment. In this instance the purpose is heartily avowed. The monograph in hand forms a contribution to the series of studies being pursued widely among scholars whose aim is to piece together portions of the picture of culture of the Indians of the Southeast. Our knowledge of the culture properties of native tribes in any area where their development has been going on for centuries in their original seats comes necessarily by gradual steps. These may seem disconnected in the minds of laymen who are in haste to see the whole story completed. Perhaps only the pioneer investigator knows how long and intimately a people must be studied by dwelling in their midst before their ways of life become clear enough to be understood and discussed. Collections of data, historical, descriptive and functional, have to be made and preserved in the form of notes and actual specimens. When these ends are accomplished, the picture of tribal life takes definite shape, and another gap in the history of a people is closed. These are the requirements for carrying on in a somewhat new undertaking in the line of history, namely ethno-history. Studies of a peoples physical structure, their psychology, language, religion and government contribute their share. On the material side their crafts developed to supply economic needs and the art involved in the crafts themselves must be illustrated with accumulations of specimens. These requirements the author of the following study has had well in mind for a considerable space of time, and he has treated them with conservative judgment and a regard for their implications with botany and ecology. Such remarks applied to the paper constitute the ethnologists endorsement. It is a splendid thing for man of the present to take time to stabilize his mind to contemplating the achievements of tribes inhabiting our continent as a prologue to the affairs of the present. Where is the brash critic to persist in the claim that the natives of America have no original elements of civilization either from the early or late past, or in the present? The Cherokee have provided an answer. Contemporary literature has amassed the evidence nor alone in the series of volumes from the University of Oklahoma Press, but in prose and poetry known throughout the nation. It offers a compendious chapter in the epic of America. Each additional study adds a paragraph of importance to the whole. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 62285
Author: Field, Clark
Release Date: May 30, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English