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NATIVE AMERICAN DESIGNS AND COLORS  (You are Here)                   

The People: Native American Legacy

Native Americans decorated most of their crafts to make them more beautiful. They added color and designs with paint, beads, quill embroidery, and by carving and weaving. Sometimes a design or color was a symbol, that is, it stood for an idea or told a story. For example, among the Crow, the color black was a symbol for victory; arrow symbols might mean a hunt or a battle.

Each group had its own set of meanings for colors and designs to use on ceremonial crafts. These symbols could be drawn on a leather pouch or a drumskin to retell a myth or relate an important event Sometimes the maker of a ghost shirt or some other ceremonial object had a dream that revealed what design to use.

The decorative art on many everyday objects had no special meaning. Sometimes a geometric design might be called "butterfly" because the triangle shapes together on a basket looked like a butterfly. Usually, the only way to find out if a design was supposed to be a symbol with meaning was to ask the maker. Designs that showed people, birds, and animals were usually created by men. Women worked more with geometric shapes.

Color was important to add meaning to a design, too. Most Native Americans named four points of the earth, the four directions of the compass--north, south, east, and west--and assigned a color to each one. Among the Cherokee, north was blue, south was white, east was red, and west was black. Colors could also mean life or death, wax or peace, female or male, night or day. For example, the Navaho thought black represented men and blue, women. The Hopi thought that the color blue was the most sacred and used it to honor their gods. Here are some of the other meanings attached to colors:

Color Meaning for Native Americans
Black night, underworld, male, cold, disease, death
Blue sky, water, female, clouds, lightning, moon, thunder, sadness
Green plant life, earth, summer, rain
Red wounds, sunset, thunder, blood, earth, war, day
White winter, death, snow
Yellow sunshine, day, dawn

FACTS
NATURAL DYES

Native Americans used plant materials to make beautiful, soft colors to dye wool, cotton, and other fibers. They made almost every color, though shades of yellow were the easiest to produce.

Listed below are some of the plants Native Americans used for coloring.

Color Plant Material
Blacks wild grapes, hickory bark, alder bark, dogwood bark, mountain mahogany bark
Blues larkspur petals, alfalfa flowers, sunflower seeds
Browns walnut shells, birch bark
Greens moss, algae, lily-of-the-valley leaves, juniper berries
Purples blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, rotten maple wood
Reds sumac berries, dogwood bark, beets, cranberries
Yellows onion skins, goldenrod stems and flowers, sunflower petals, dock roots, marigold petals, moss, peach leaves, birch leaves, sagebrush

 

 
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Source: Department of Cultural Affairs- Nevada State Library and Archives

Nevada State Library
Reference Services
100 North Stewart Street
Carson City, NV 89701- 4285

 

History
Lewis & Clark 101
Lewis & Clark Biography 
Thomas Jefferson & Louisiana Purchase
Corps of Discovery
Lewis & Clark with Sacagawea
Lewis & Clark Among the Tribes
York, Clark's man-servant
Seaman, Lewis' Dog
Clark as Cartographer
Lewis as Botanist
Medical Aspects
Courts Martial
Geology on the Lewis and Clark Trail
Lewis and Clark 1804 Timeline
Lewis and Clark 1805 Timeline
Lewis and Clark 1806

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