128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 99 



qualities, or reminiscent of one of his feats on the war path, while 

 hunting, etc. 



Care for Child — Child Life 



The Cherokee are very fond of children and are far less loath to 

 give vent to their affection than Indians are generally believed to be. 



There are now no special cradles, nor is there any distinctive 

 dress for children. The first few weeks it may be merely swaddled 

 in a bed sheet, and as it grows up it is astonishingly soon considered 

 of age to wear the cast-off garments of its elders. I saw little boys 

 and girls of 4 and 5 years old dressed for all the world like their 

 fathers and mothers, and at the family we stayed with, a much 

 dilapidated black felt hat was shared by a little fellow of 6 and his 

 married brother of 25, who borrowed it as circumstances demanded. 



The child is always nourished with the mother's milk, unless it be 

 brought up to be a witch (see p. 130), or if the mother's lactation is 

 deficient; this is only rarely the case. If for any of these two reasons 

 the mother does not nurse her child, it is brought up on the liquid 

 part of k'a'no'e-'no", corn hominy. 



Very soon the young fellow adopts the fare of the grown-ups, and 

 eats as they do the almost indigestible corn dumplings and the 

 underdone venison. The results, it need hardly be said, are often 

 disastrous. 



There are various ways and means to help the child along with its 

 growth, and to endow it with a fine physique as well as with all kinds 

 of enviable qualities: 



The very strong sinewy roots of Dt'st§,-yo°' {Tephrosia virginiana 

 (L.) Pers.; goatsrue; catgut) are boiled and given to the child to 

 drink to make it strong and muscular. 



It is given the eavesdrop, from where it falls in one continuous spout, 

 to drink, so that it may be a fluent speaker. This behef is very prob- 

 ably borrowed from the whites. 



The flesli}^ tubers of k*a ntGu-tsa'ti (Lilium canadense L.; wild yel- 

 low lily) are boiled and the decoction is given to the child to drink; 

 it is also bathed in it, the object of both actions being to make it 

 fleshy and fat. Another plant put to the same use was the Apledrum 

 hiemale (putty root; Adam-and-Eve) (cf. Mooney, Myths, p. 427). 

 Another means to ''endow the children with the gift of eloquence" 

 is indicated by Mooney, op. cit., p. 420. 



As a rule the child's hygienic condition is very bad indeed. I have 

 known cases where infants who were born rosy, chubby little fellows 

 had hardly made any progress two months or ten weeks after their 

 birth, as they were literafly being eaten up and worried to death by 

 vermin and filth. There are, however, some fortunate exceptions, 

 and some of the cleaner mothers take as much pride in their offspring 



