Three thousand years ago on a rock panel in the American Southwest, the figure of a flute player with either a humped back or a bag on his back, was carved for the first time in a remote canyon. Over the years, the figure has shown up over a wide area of the Southwest in many different canyons, on the walls of caves and cliff dwellings.

Harry Morgan spent his life in and around Gallup, New Mexico. He won awards at every major Indian art show. The year before he died there was an exhibit at the Heard Museum featuring several of his silver boxes.

Many of you know that two years ago in September we had a burglary at the gallery in Durango. It was a big one. The thieves broke in through a skylight window from the roof, dropped into the offices, ran down the stairs, smashed three showcases that had our expensive jewelry in them and were out the emergency fire door in less than a minute.

Dolls have been a standard toy since the beginning of the human race. It doesn’t matter where you look in the world, from the courts of Europe kings to the Plains of Asia and America or to the vastness of Africa, anywhere there has been civilization, people have made dolls for their children.

The American Bison or as we call it, the Buffalo, roamed the plains of the American West virtually unchallenged by natural predators. They were an essential part of life for the Indians of the plains. The Buffalo provided food, hides for teepees, clothing and robes for winter. The leather was used for bridles, shields, bows and many other things.

Did you realize that Mesa Verde National Park, between Cortez and Durango, Colorado is the only National Park in the United Stated dedicated to the works of man rather than the works of Nature?

After our email last week where I stated that J.B. Moore sold the Crystal Trading Post in 1911 and disappeared, possibly as the result of a scandal, I received a couple of emails. This one is from Mike Ryan, co-author of “The Great American Turquoise Rush 1890-1910.

Fritz Scholder occupies a unique spot in Native American Art. Many times during his career, he claimed that he was not an Indian, but the works that initially brought him to fame were a series on Native Americans.

He shocked the Native American art market with his paintings of Indians with beer cans, American Flags and some other wild stuff.