SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTEllN UNITED STATES 563 



pass through ; a leather strap is tied from one corner of the board to the other, 

 whereby the mother slings her child on her back, with the child's back towards 

 hers; at other times they hang them against the walls of their houses, or to 

 the boughs of trees. (Catesby, 1731-43, vol. 2, p. xv.) 



In connection with head flattening, Adair remarks : 



The Indian nations, round South Carolina, and all the way to New Mexico, 

 ... to effect this, fix the tender infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are 

 tilted, above a foot higher than a horizontal position, — his head bends back into 

 a hole, made on purpose to receive it, where he bears the chief part of his 

 weight on the crown of the head, upon a small bag of sand, without being in 

 the least able to move himself. (Adair, 1775, p. 10.) 



Bossu speaks thus of the Choctaw : 



Their cradle is made of canes. The mothers lay their children in these so 

 that their heads are three or four finger-widths lower than their bodies. (Bossu, 

 1768, vol. 2, p. 105 ; Swanton, 1931 a, p. 117.) 



And, writing about a century later, Cushman discusses the subject 

 as follows : 



After a child was born, after undergoing the usual necessary preliminaries, 

 it was placed in a curiously constructed receptacle called Ullosi afohka (infant 

 receptacle), where it spent principally the first year of its life, only when taken 

 out for the purpose of washing and dressing. This curiously made little cradle 

 (for such it may truly be called) was often highly ornamented with all the 

 paraphernalia that a mother's love and care could suggest or obtain. The little 

 fellow's face, which was always exposed to view, was carefully protected by 

 a piece of wood bent a few inches above and over it. . . . According to her con- 

 venience, the mother suspended her thus cradled child on her back, when walk- 

 ing, or the saddle when riding; or stood it up against a neighboring tree, if a 

 pleasant day, that it might enjoy the fresh and pure air, and exhilarating sun- 

 shine ; or suspended it on the projecting limb of a tree there to be rocked to sleep 

 and pleasant dreams by the forest breeze. (Cushman, 1896, pp. 232-233; Swan- 

 ton, 1931 a, p. 117.) 



Du Pratz thus describes the Natchez cradle : 



This cradle is about 2i^ feet long by 8 to 9 inches broad. It is artistically 

 made of straight canes running the length of the cradle, and at the end they 

 are cut in half and bent back under to make the foot. The whole is only half 

 a foot high. This cradle is very light, since it weighs not more than 2 pounds. 

 (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, vol. 2, p. 309 ; Swanton, 1911, p. 86.) 



The Luxemburg Memoir, however, describes it as "the end of a 

 board on which is spread a piece of animal skin ; one extremity of this 

 board has a hole in which the head is put and it is lower than the rest" 

 (Swanton, 1911, pp. 54-55). 



If MacCauley's observations may be relied upon, the Florida Semi- 

 nole in 1880-81 used no cradle. 



The Florida Indian baby, when very young, spends his time, naked, in a 

 hammock, or on a deer skin, or on the warm earth. (MacCauley, 1887, p. 497.) 



