46 BULLETIN 134, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



30.6 cm. (12 in.) in length, 14.8 cm. (5.8 in.) in seat width at the 

 middle, and 6.4 cm. (2.5 in.) in height (pi. 4, No. 2). There is no 

 surface decorative design and the lateral and support edges are 

 square cut rather than rounded and tapering, as in the San Bias 

 coast type. 



A similar arrangement of seat surface form, but a departure from 

 the technique of support attachment, is found in child's seat col- 

 lected by the Marsh-Darien expedition on the San Bias coast (Cat. 

 No. 327577, U.S.N.M.). This seat is 30 cm. (11.8 in.) in length, 

 16.6 cm. (6.5 in.) in width. The supports are placed at the lateral 

 edges of the seat top and are so carved as to resemble a hollow arch. 

 Probably a representation of a turtle with extended legs was in- 

 tended (pi. 4, No. 3). 



A seat, "kana" (Tule), with bird-head figure, carved in its en- 

 tirety from a solid block of hardwood, is also used by the Tule 

 (Cat. No. 327575, U.S.N.M.). The two side supports extending 

 from the middle sector of the lateral edges of the seat have wedge- 

 shaped projections at their base and are connected at one end by a 

 brace that extends upward to the under surface of the seat. It is 

 from this brace that the bird-head figure is projected. The seat is 

 30 cm. (11.8 in.) in length and 16.6 cm. (6.5 in.) wide (pi. 4, No. 4). 

 This seat more nearly approaches the type found to the north of 

 Panama carved from stone and copied by the Talamanca in seats 

 of wood. The three seats without the bird-head carving, described 

 first, are also found over a wide extent of tropical South America 

 as far south as southern Brazil. 



Children and their toys. — The mild-mannered disposition of the 

 Choco Indians may be noted in the treatment accorded by them to 

 their wives and children. To strike a woman or child or to be rude 

 toward them is unusual. So the child grows up happy, undisci- 

 plined, and boisterous. When a woman is delivered of a child another 

 woman takes the child shortly after its birth in her arms and the 

 mother upon her back, and takes both of them to the river and there 

 washes them. The child for the first month was formerly tied upon 

 a board swathed to the back. This was to make the child grow very 

 straight. When the child was to be cleaned it was removed from 

 the board and washed with unheated Avater. The mother suckled her 

 child without unswathing it from the board. It was then laid back 

 into its little hammock, which was kept open with short transversely 

 placed sticks. At the present time a little hammock instead of a 

 cradle board is used. 



As the child grows up he is eager to enter upon the occupations of 

 his parents, so that he early becomes adept in shooting with the 

 blowgun and expert with bow and arrow. He generally accompanies 



