Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 152, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1920 — INDIANS FIRST USED RADIUM [ARTICLE]

INDIANS FIRST USED RADIUM

Aborigines of Utah Employed Ore as Beautifier. - MAN’S FIBST COAT WAS PAINT Reds Painted Their Bodies Bright Yellow, and With Other Pigment* Looked Like Rainbow*— Mining Op* •rations Show That Indians Did Much Digging for Iron Oxide, Which Was Ussffto Decorate TljpJrJßodlda The first users of radium one were the Indians of Utah. In pre-Columbian times they employed It (the stuff now known as "carnotite”) to paint their bodies a bright canary yellow. No work on eminent painters ought to omit mention of the American aborigines, who quite graerally were in earlier days wonderful colorists. It is suspected that the first coat worn by man was a coat of paint. But the early American artist, when he had adorned himself like a rainbow, the final touch, perhaps, being to make the lower half of his face red and the upper half green, did by no means stop at that He painted weird pictures on rocks and the faces of cliffs. He painted his wooden bouse, or his tepee, with symbollc and descriptive designs. He painted his shield and bow and arrows. He painted monstrous masks (worn in ceremonials) and also his pottery. Most Precious to Indiana The most precious of all things to the Indians—who even nowadays have not lost their talent In this dlrection-*-waa paint A deposit of mineral pig ment was to them a mine of wealth. Oxides of copper yielded blue and green paints, and from iron oxide wa* obtained a brilliant red. The first workers in the quicksllvet mines of California were pre-Colum-bian Indians. Cinnabar, the ore ot mercury, is a sulphide of the lattet metal which we call vermilion. Great stuff for war paint, as well as sot other uses. Not long ago an Important deposit of ore was opened at Leslie, Mo., and mining operations disclosed the fact that much digging had anciently been done there by the Indians—not sot iron but for iron oxide contained In seams and pockets. For the oxide they bad burrowed In all directions even to a depth of 25 feet. Trade was extensively developed in early days among the Indian tribes, and doubtless the pigment produced by this mine was distributed over a vast territory. The miners employed there today, when they come out after a day’s work, look as if they were painted from head to foot. The same diggings in times antedating the white man yielded quail* ties of another highly valued paint, namely, yellow ocher —the latter being another compound of iron, often found associated with ths red oxida Paint From SpHhps. A beautiful white paint was obtained by the Indians of the Yellowstone region from boiling springs. It was a white clay, very finely divided, so that when dried it took the form of a powder. They took it out in the form of mud, which had only to be ex* posed to the sun in order to become first-class pigment material. Some ot it had a pinkish tint. = The Indian women, as well as the men, used pigments for cosmetic purposes. But, unlike modern young ladles, they did not try to disguise them* selves with masks of white, or to adorn their cheeks and lips with roseate hues, though the white stuff from the Yellowstone springs might have furnished an excellent "liquid powder," supplemented by touches ot vermilion or iron oxide. They painted their faces with quaint conventional design*, In obedience to the demands of aboriginal fashion. —Philadelphia Ledger.