

OF NORTH CAROLINA. 309 



attack our infants in England, and other parts of 

 Europe. They let their children suck till they are 

 well grown, unless they prove big with child soon- 

 er. They always nurse their own children them- 

 selves, unless sickness or death prevents. I once 

 saw a nurse hired to give suck to an Indian wo- 

 man's child, which you have in my journal. After 

 delivery, they absent the company of a man for 

 forty days. As soon as the child is born, they 

 wash it in cold water at the next stream and then 

 bedawb it, as I have mentioned before. After 

 which the husband takes care to provide a cradle, 

 which is soon made, consisting of a piece of flat 

 wood, which they hew with their hatches to the 

 thickness of a board ; it is about two feet long, 

 and a foot broad ; to this they brace and tie the 

 child down very close, having near the middle, a 

 stick fastened about two inches from the board, 

 which is for the child's breech to rest upon, under 

 which they put a wad of moss that receives the 

 child's excrements, by which means they can shift 

 the moss and keep all clean and sweet. Some na- 

 tions have very flat heads, as you have heard in 

 my journal, which is made whilst tied on this cra- 

 dle, as that relation informed you. These cradles 

 are apt to make the body flat ; yet they are the 

 most portable things that can be invented, for there 

 is a string which goes from one corner of the board 

 to the other, whereby the mother flings her child 

 on her back ; so the infant's back is towards hers, 

 and its face looks up towards the sky. If it rains 



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