Indians Make Fine Models
They sit as if Pertified, says a Chicago Artist
Who Has Been Among Them

If Indian chiefs, like other potent tales, had their court painters, the appointment would certainly go to E. A. Burbank, the Chicago artist. He has just returned to this city after spending nearly a year among sintering tribes, with some 80 heads of chiefs, squaws, medicine men - on canvas only and a freight load of souvenirs in the shape of Navajo blankets, head-work, basketwork, pottery, feather headdresses and aboriginal rods. This was not his first tor his second visit to the nation's wards. At one time or another he has painted Rain-in-the-Face, Spotted Horse and nearly all the prominent chiefs still living. That old blackguard Geronimo invites him to dinner and condescends to put his own distinguished autograph upon his portraits, and a child of seven would print just about as well.

Christian Nai-che, who was rightfully the chief of the Apaches until the wily medicine man usurped his position, has also been among Burbank's sitters, and carved him a remarkable cane, about which twines a green-stained serpent, as a trifling token of esteem. Court painters across the ocean get jeweled canes from royalty. How would one of them like having his picture attributed to magic art, and himself suspected of witchcraft? That is what happened to Burbank among the Zunis, who believe it a religious act to kill witches.

"Indians are fine models," said the artist, "They don't know what nerves are. They sit as if petrified. I had a little clock that struck the half hours, and my sitters soon learned that they could rest whenever it sounded. Between times they sat as if carved from stone. How did I persuade them to pose? Flattery? 0, little, perhaps, but here are your best persuaders," jingling big silver dollars together. "I have established a regular tariff among them. So much for a plainly-dressed Indian; so much more for one in war or dance costume, Geronimo, sly old fellow, demands half a dollar more than anyone else. Sometimes all your money and all your prayers won't induce them to pose in a ceremonial dress. When It-say-yo did it, we locked the doors and soaped the windows carefully, no that no one could see in from outside. Usually I worked with such a crowd of copper-colored faces peering in at the low windows that they obstructed the light. If they had known what It-say-yo was doing they would have flogged him till the blood came."

It-say-yo is a gentleman of terrifying aspect. His nose and cheeks are striped across with black, grew, yellow and red; his naked body is painted in zigzags of green, and his forehead is pure white. Around his brawny neck are many strings of shell beads and rough turquoise; buckskin is fastened, about his lofts; and his shield hears the eagle emblem, marking him as one of the seven chiefs of the bow. For all that, he is pacifically employed washing dishes and the like for the trader at Zuni; "and he is an awful nice fellow," comments Burbank, adding as an afterthought, "he killed his wife's mother, though." - Chicago Tribune.

1899-02-18
Reno Evening Gazette

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