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:

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.