562 BUREiAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



flat, for the conveniency of the person's back who carries it. Their ark has 

 a cover, and the whole is made impenetrably close with hiccory-spl inters; it 

 is about half the dimensions of the divine Jewish ark, and may very properly 

 be called the red Hebrew ark of the purifier, imitated. The leader, and a 

 beloved waiter, carry it by turns. (Adair, 1775, p. 160.) 



Elsewhere he speaks as if such arks were in common use, not only 

 by the Chickasaw but by all of the principal tribes with which 

 they were surrounded. Although there is mention of "idols" carried 

 by several of these tribes to war, we have no further descriptions of 

 the containers, if such were used. Adair speaks of the Cherokee 

 war medicine or palladium "which was covered with a drest deer-skin, 

 and placed on a couple of short blocks" while a body of that tribe 

 was marching to the aid of the British in 1756, but we do not know 

 that this was in a true box. (Adair, 1775, p. 168, ftn.). 



At Key Marco, Fla., Cushing found 



a little jewel-box lid or bottom, of hard, dark brown wood, eight inches 

 in length, by four in width. The ends were rabbetted and drilled for attach- 

 ment (with sinew and black gum, traces of which remained), to the ends 

 of the box, and the ends themselves were in juxtaposition. Each end was 

 four inches long and of corresponding width, and painted lengthwise on the 

 outside, with double mythic tie-cords and shell-clasp figures. The bottom and 

 the other parts were missing, save for fragments. (Cushing, 1896, p. 428.) 



CRADLES 



Of the Indians of Virginia, Beverley (1705, bk. 3, p. 9) says that, 

 after washing a newborn infant, they "bind it naked to a convenient 

 Board, having a hole fitly plac'd for evacuation; but they always 

 put Cotton, Wool, Furr, or other soft thing, for the Body to rest 

 easy on, between the Child and the Board." Lawson's account of 

 the Siouan cradle is much more satisfactory: 



The husband takes care to provide a cradle, which is soon made, consisting 

 of a piece of flat wood, which they hew with their hatchets 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. . . . 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 she throws 

 her leather or woolen matchcoat, over her head, which covers the child all over, 

 and secures her and it from the injuries of rainy weather. (Lawson, 1860, 

 p. 310.) 



Catesby says that the native cradle 



consists of a flat board about two foot long, and one broad, to which they brace 

 the child close, cutting a hole against the child's breech for its excrements to 



