26 June 1998
Thanks to DN

June 26, 1998
Navajo Painter, Code Expert Dies
Filed at 1:15 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press

CANONCITO, N.M. (AP) -- Narciso "Ciso" Platero Abeyta, a World War II code
expert and a painter whose works on Navajo themes are in museums across the
country, died Monday of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 79. 

Abeyta's watercolor works are included in collections at the Museum of the
American Indian in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the
Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Okla., the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe and
the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. 

During World War II, Abeyta was among the 450 Navajos whose Marine unit
stumped the Japanese by sending encrypted messages in the Navajo language.