QUEER INDIAN CRADLES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 42, 17 October 1891, Page 499

QUEER INDIAN CRADLES.

Girls and boys who sleep the happy sleep of infancy in luxurious bassinettes are fortunate indeed as compared with the red babies of the American plains, whose little beds are far from comfortable. The Indian cradle is used for a variety of purposes. It has generally the shape of a huge shoe, and when the child is laced up within its folds, the baby looks like a wee mummy more than a living infant. When the tribe is on the move, then the cradle is strapped on to the mother’s back, and some of the women in this position bear an unpleasant resemblance to a butcher carrying a joint on his tray. One of the simplest kinds of cradles was that used by the Comanche Indians. It consisted of a piece of black bearskin thirty inches long and twenty wide, and when the baby was wrapped up in it the sides were laced together ; and a very cosy bundle it made. What think you ? The Pitt River Indians used a eradle that must have been nearly as uncomfortable as a plank bed. A pole was bent double in the form of a big tennis racquet: the two ends were passed through a thin slab of wood that served as a foot-rest, and were then bound together with thongs of buckskin. Then planks were fastened across the upper part of the frame, and Upon them the infant was laid, its tiny feet resting against the foot-board. The Mohave cradle was a sort of ladder or trellis-work ; and the Yaqui cradle was merely a bundle of reeds. When shredded willow has been heaped upon these articles, the bed was supposed to be ‘ made.’ On the other hand, the Sioux cradle was more elaborate. Two planks placed in the shape of a big V formed the frame, crosspieces of wood keeping them in position at top and bottom. The cradle was attached to the lower part of the framework, and the two ends of the V projected some eighteen inches beyond the bed, and were adorned with brass-headed nails. The shoe-shaped cradle of hide or birch-bark was ornamented'with beads or painted designs.