The Indians’ Book

Angel De Cora (born Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka, Fleecy Cloud Floating in Place, or Woman Coming On The Clouds in Glory), belonged to a prominent Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) family in Nebraska. Lured by an anonymous trafficker’s promise of a trip on a train, De Cora was stolen from her family and brought to the Hampton Institute in Virginia. The school, founded to teach practical arts to emancipated African Americans, expanded its mission to forcefully assimilate Native children. De Cora went on to study at Smith College and then joined a new commercial art program at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. She studied with illustrator Howard Pyle before ultimately rejecting his pedagogy. “I am an Indian,” a colleague recalled her saying. “I don’t want to draw just like a white man.” The Indians' Book was compiled by prominent scholar and musicologist Natalie Curtis, who sought to assemble authentic songs from different Native communities. When Angel De Cora’s presented a sample of her lettering design to the publisher, the in-house designer said, “Get that girl to do all the lettering in the book and you will have something unlike anything that’s ever been done with the alphabet before.” These pages served as chapter dividers throughout the book in black and white, and gathered in groups throughout the book in full color. Drawings by Native artists represent that chapter’s culture.