justice of this is immediately apparent when one considers that Elmer is recognized as being one of the last remaining makers of genuine Mohave Indian artifacts.

Mr. Gage is a thirty-five year old man, standing about six feet tall, with a happy, well-fed air about him. Though delicate of bearing, he has prodigious physical strength-the fruit of long hours of hard farm labor. He has the evenness of temper and the quick wit that is peculiar to Mohaves.

He and a few others are Bird Dancers. Bird dancing (a charming

dance with one man and three or four women which imitates the actions of birds) is a social dance that is performed for celebrations and various other gatherings. He has danced before statesmen, movie stars, and foreign dignitaries, yet his success has been relatively small. In plain, unpleasant truth, no one cares any more.

Elmer's "grandmother" is a magnificent old woman, who wears the ceremonial tattoo of the Mohaves, which has been abandoned for many years. This tattoo consists of five thin blue parallel lines running from the lower lip to the bottom of the chin. Her face is arresting in its unique beauty. Her hands move with a fascinating grace as she performs such mundane tasks as cooking and sewing. While talking, her elegant, expressive hands are continually in motion, punctuating phrases and adding a singular symmetry to her speech. Although her eyes are growing dim, she can still weave and sew, and is one of the very few Mohaves remaining who knows the reason behind many of the tribal ceremonies and stories.

The following interview was corded the day after Christmas, 1964. We three sat around the table in the Gage home while a half-coyote puppy frisked on the floor and "Constantine and the Cross" raged across the tele-

vision screen. We ate pinal, which is a sort of stone-ground wheat cereal made by the Maricopa Indians-close relatives of the Mohaves.

Q: Elmer, how long have you been making art objects for sale to tourists, and what kind of things do you make?

E: Gee, I started a long time ago during school. About 1947. Selling things to the tribe. I make necklaces, bola ties (Maybe I'll make you one for Christmas), beaded belts, complete cradle boards, Mohave ceremonial dolls. Also pottery. I make ceremonial costumes, like for the Bird Dancers. My own costumes. Beaded earrings. Headdresses. All kinds of stuff.

Q: You mentioned ceremonial dolls. What exactly are they?

E: The Mohaves have a ceremony where they try to bring the dead back. They make a doll and dress him in the dead man's clothes. They have a ceremony where they dance these dolls. Of course the dolls I make for tourists are just little ones-copies. But I can also make the real ones. The life-sized ones.

Q: Where did you learn to make all these things?

Grandma: I taught him how to do these things when he was young. He was interested. Like the cradle boards for babies. You have to know they're different. For boys we have a narrow board to put them on, and for the girls it's a little more wider, like this (motioning with her hands). They always are happier when a boy baby's born. (Laughing.) I don't know why. But Elmer learned all these thingshow to make things. And when something's going on he goes there and watches. That's how he learns.

Q: Can any of the other Mohaves make the things Elmer makes?

Grandma: Um-hum. Some of them could if they wanted to.

Q: Do they?

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