186 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



around to its relations' lodges for inspection. Every evening it is taken 

 from its confinement to be washed, painted, and dressed again, and 

 greased. The first cloth over its posterior is laid with a coating of dry 

 pulverized buffalo dung or chips, and this is used as a white woman 

 uses a diaper. 



As it grows older it is taken by its mother, placed up in the lodge or 

 outside, while she goes about her work. If the child is restless it is 

 nursed while on the board. After six to eight months of age the child 

 is laid to sleep without the board, and it is generally discarded after a 

 year old, though I have seen Indian boys and girls suckling at five and 

 six years of age. An Indian child, like a white one, is pleased with 

 toys, candy, etc., and their instincts are alike. They cry, laugh, are 

 amused, frightened, and astonished, and as they are born and brought 

 up so do they live. 



The board upon which a child is laid is covered with a tanned elk- 

 skin or deer skin, and beads worked on it. The place where the child 

 reposes is loose, and is laced and tied up when the child is placed in it.* 



The straps for carrying and suspending it are on the opposite side of 

 the board, and in carrying, the strap is brought over the head and placed 

 across the upper part of the breast and across the shoulders. This 

 brings the board upon which the back of the child rests against the 

 back of the mother. The board is one-quarter of an inch thick, from 

 2£ to 3 feet in length, and 1 J feet in bulge of board. 



The Nez Perce' Indians belong to the Sahaptian stock, and were 

 once a noble people, dwelling on the Snake Eiver and its affluents in 

 Idaho. They have produced the historical character, Chief Joseph, but 

 are now reduced to an enervated remnant dwelling on the Nez Perce 

 Eeservation. The basis of the cradle is a rough board, generally hewn 

 out, 3 feet high, 15 inches wide at the top, and not more than an inch 

 thick. It is shaped somewhat like a tailor's sleeveboard, but is more 

 tapering (Fig. 17). This board is covered with buckskin, drawn per- 

 fectly tight upon the back and across the broad part of the front as far 

 down as the hood, or about one-third the length. Below that the two 

 edges of the buckskin form flaps, which meet nearly over the child. 

 Along the edges of these flaps, strings are looped, into which loops a 

 lashing cord passes backward and foiward to inclose the child tightly 

 in its capsule. On the top of the back a fringe of buckskin strings is 

 formed, either by slitting the buckskin covering itself or by a separate 

 strip sewed on at this point. A little above the center is sewed the head- 

 strap of buckskin, to enable the mother to transport her child or to sus- 

 pend it when at rest. The hood of the cradle is based upon the flaps of 

 buckskin, but these are entirely concealed by the covering of flannel or 

 other substance. The most ornamented portion of the cradle is the 



*Catlin, George. (Illustrations of the Manners, etc., of the N. American Indians. 

 London. 1876. 8vo. Vol. I.) Head of Crow chief distorted into semi-lunar shape 

 (p. 50). 



