Stránka:book 1913.djvu/498

476 The Book of Woodcraft Paints for ornamenting robes are mixed with water. (Clark: "Sign Language.") Paints for lodges, totem poles, etc., were made durable by slowly melting or mixing into the grease enough rosin to make it sticky. This formed their paint oil. Red. Before they had the white man's vermihon they used a certain stiff yellow clay (brick clay) which, when burnt, turned dull red — i. e., brick color. This they pow- dered and mixed with the grease oil. In some parts of the country there are springs strongly impregnated with iron. A log of wood dug out of this — or failing that an armful of chips long soaked in it — when taken out, dried and burnt yielded ashes of a beautiful rosy color. These worked up into a very pretty red. Yellow. Yellow clay or ochres are common in clay regions and furnish a dull yellow. Clark says that the flower of the prairie, goldenrod, yields a good yellow: also the bright yellow moss one sees on the trunks of pine trees in the Rockies. When dried and powdered this makes a sort of chrome yellow, and is also used as a dye. "The Sioux use buU-berries" for yellow. (Clark.) Blue. They had no good blue. Blue clays come near- est to the color. Sometimes black and white mixed were used. Black. Soot and charcoal, ground into the paint oil, made a good black. White. For white they used white clays, which are com- mon in some regions, or burnt shells, finely powdered. "Generally speaking. Black means joy: White, mourn- ing: Red, beauty: and an excessive use of any of these or other colors, excitement." "When painting for war, they use many stripes and rings of different colors, but on returning only black-colored paint is used. "