CRADLES OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 



199 



through this slit. This serves the purpose of a knot at each hole, as in 

 many other cradles. A foot-piece of bear skin is sewed in with coarse 

 leather string.* 



Governor Stevens (Ind. Aff. Kept., 1854) says the Blackfeet women 

 carry their children in their arms or in a robe behind their backs. 

 When traveling, the children are placed in sacks of skin on the tent 

 poles. I saw no cradle of any form. We have in this mention a par- 

 allel to the Comanche type. Note also the use of stiff rawhide as a sub- 

 stitute or antecedent of boards to secure stiffness. The subject will 

 come up again in speaking of the Sioux and other Eastern cradles. 



Fia. 34. 



Comanche Cradle of the rudest 

 bout, made of a stiff piece of 

 black beau-skin. 



(Cat. No. 6970, U. S. N. M. Texas. Collected by 

 Edward Palmer.) 



Fi<r. 35. 



Blackfeet Cradle, made of lat- 

 tice-work and leather. 



(Cat. No. 



U. S. N. M. Texas. Collected by 

 Edward Palmer. ) 



The frame illustrated by Fig. o5 belongs to the latticed type, and is 

 thus constructed : Two strips of narrow board, often native hewn, wider 

 and further apart at the upper end, are held in place by cross-pieces 

 lashed and apart just the length of the leather cradle sheath. This 

 lashing is very ingeniously done ; four holes an inch apart are bored 

 through the frame board and cross-piece at the corners of a square, a 

 string of buckskin is passed backward and forward from hole to hole 



* Bancroft (Native Races of the Pacific States, N. Y., 1873, vol. i) : As soon as a 

 Comanche child is born " it is fastened to a small hoard by bandages, and so carried 

 for several months on the back of the mother. Later the child rides on the mother's 

 hip, or is carried on her back in a basket or blanket " (pp. 513, 514). 



