Crafts Of The North American Indians

"Details how Native American culture evolved, the artifacts produced on the continent and the ways they were made, and the techniques of decoration and embellishment that utilized a variety of disparate natural commodities that depended on geographical necessity and abundance"--Jacket flap.

This manual presents 27 authentic patterns of the major types of Indian footwear in North America. It provides step-by-step instructions for sewing moccasins. It is well illustrated & easily understood. The historical information is applicable for college level research, yet the instructional information is appropriate for summer camps, art classes & crafts people ages eight years through adulthood. A video that supplements this manual is also available, entitled MOCCASIN MAKING. Other craft manuals by George White cover beading, snowshoes, skin boats, ivory carving & numerous other rare forms of Native American art. Each manual includes a unique view of the art objects & the artists as well as the geographical & historical information. For current prices & information contact: White Publishing, 173 Blodgett Lane, Arlee, MT 59281, (406) 726-4162.

Uses of shields, drums, tipis, and other items, plus numerous well-illustrated, easy-to-follow projects—making clothing, tipis, wigwams, bows, arrows; fire-building; games; ritual song and dance. 30 photos; over 100 line drawings and diagrams.

Nearly 40 detailed, accurate illustrations of natives making drums, building a dugout canoe, carving totem poles, building a fire, more. Includes fact-filled captions.

The magnificent art and decorative craftsmanship of the Indian tribes of North America appear in all of their colonial variety and complexity in this superb volume. Examples are included of the work of every major region in the areas now comprising the United States and Canada, of most of the numerically important or artistically pre-eminent tribes, and all of the major techniques employed by Indian artists. No reader of this book can long continue in a misapprehension of the stereotyped image of 'the Indian.' The varying cultures which developed on the North American continent - from the Eskimo hunters of the Arctic to the woodland League of the Iroquois, and from the Pueblo agriculturalists to the nomads of the Great Plains - are all represented. Each found its own ways of using available natural resources for utilitarian objects, for religious and ritual purposes, or for sheer aesthetic pleasure. The book abounds in beautiful examples of characteristics shell and quill work, pottery and weaving, deer and buffalo hide painting, carved stone pipes and tomahawks so commonly associated with Indian cultures. Less familiar are illustrations of mysterious stone effigy sculptures from the death-cults of the ancient Southeast; sophisticated carvings in stone and ivory from the Midwest; elaborate horse-trappings and costuming from the Great Plains; and a fascinating variety of masks. Dr. Dockstader draws upon a thorough knowledge of Indian life, custom and artistic tradition to relate this material to its sources in his introduction and in the extensive background comments accompanying each of the illustrations. He sees the art of the American Indian not as a subject for static sociological research, but as a living and continuing expression of a vital people, and he has included in this book a number of examples of recent and contemporary work by Indian artists. -- from dust jacket.