CRADLES OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 191 



awning of the cradle. We are now ready for the cover, which is formed 

 by a wide piece of the whitest buckskin, wrapped on as in making a 

 bundle, sewed on the back and slit open in front. The upper portion 

 is cut into the neatest possible fringe. A broad head-band of soft buck- 

 skin completes the outfit. A specimen from the same locality varies 

 somewhat in detail. 



This cradle has the ox-bow frame lathed along the back with twigs 

 close together and held in place by a continuous seizing of sinew. 

 Although a rude affair, this fact is evidently due to the lack of material 

 in a desert country rather than to want of taste in the maker. The awn- 

 ing for the face is a band of wicker, 4 inches wide, attached by its ends 

 to the side frame of the cradle. This band is of twined weaving, the 

 weft running boustrophedon. Notice especially that each half turn of 

 the twine takes in two warp twigs, and that when the weaver turned 

 backward she did not inclose the same pairs of warp twigs, but twined 

 them in quincuncially, creating a mass of elongated rhomboidal open- 

 ings, exactly as the Aleutian Islanders weave their marvelously fine 

 grass wallets, while the Ute weaving is a model of coarseness in an iden- 

 tical technique. 



The head-band of buckskin is not tied immediately to the bowed 

 frame, but is kuotted to a loop made of a narrow string, wound three 

 times around the frame and knotted.* 



The elements of the Moki cradle-frame are the floor and the awning. 

 As a foundation a stout stick is bent iu shape of the ox-yoke bow. Kods 

 of the size of a lead-pencil are attached to the curve of this bow and 

 stretched parallel to the limbs of the bow. Twigs are closely woven on 

 this warp by regular basketry weaving. The Moki are the only savages 

 west of the Rocky Mountains who practice this real wicker weaving. 

 The awuing, as the drawiug shows, is a band of the same kind of weav- 

 ing on a warp of twigs in bunches of twos or threes, these last attached 

 to blocks of wood at the ends of the fabric. The awning is bowed up- 

 ward and the end blocks lashed to the upper portions of the limbs of 

 the bow. A small aperture in the floor is for convenience in cleansing. 

 The next figure shows how by using parti-colored and finer twigs, and 

 by a different administration of the middle warp strands and the awn- 

 ing, pretty varieties of the same style of cradle may be effected (Figs. 

 25. 26). 



The Zuni cradle-board is worthy of our closest study (Fig. 27). It 

 is founded on a rough piece of board, hewn out to an inch in thickness, 

 3 feet long, and about a foot wide. A pillow-rest of wood is fastened 

 so as to steady the head. This is pegged or nailed down to the board. 



* Powell, Maj. J.W. (Exploration of the Colorado River. Washington, 1875. 4to). In 

 Grand Canon the Indians " make a wicker board by plaiting willows, * * * sew 

 a buckskin cloth to either edge, * * * fulled in the middle, * * * to form a 

 sack," and place the child, wrapped in fnr, within this. There is a wicker shade at 

 the head, and the cradle is slung on tbe mother's back by a strap passing over the 

 forehead (p 127). 



