This vast Pictorial Archive collection offers you the beauty and vigor of 2,500 authentic Indian designs that come from all over the United States, including Alaska and the Canadian Pacific Coast. Dating from prehistoric times (c. 1000 B.C.) to the end of the nineteenth century, these designs have been selected from illustrations in the first 44 Annual Reports of the prestigious Bureau of American Ethnology, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, by American and Indian art expert Maria Naylor.
The illustrations show designs and objects of innumerable kinds, including decorated vases and bottles; bowls, bottles, and pipes in the shape of birds, animals, and human heads; pottery vessels and their scrolled and fretted designs, including much Pueblo pottery with spiral, bird, animal, and other designs; shell gorgets with conventionalized rattlesnake designs; winger human figures and equal-arm cross designs on plates made by the Mound Builders; geometric and floral patterns on beadwork;