CRADLES OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 205 



Jefferys, T. (Nat. and Civil Hist, of French Dominions in North and South Amer- 

 ica, London, 1760, fol.), says of Algonkian Tetes de Boul: "The Round-Heads * * * 

 take their name from the figure of their heads. * * * It is believed that the 

 mothers * * * form the heads of the children into this shape when they are in 

 the cradle " (part I, p. 47). 



Liancourt, Duke de. (Travels through the United States, etc. London, 1799. 4to.) 

 Very much the same account as that of Weld, etc., is given by this traveler of the 

 cradle-board used by the Iroquois tribes. He says, however, that " suckling children 

 are generally suspended in a basket fastened to the ceiling" (vol. I, p. 177). 



Weld, I. (Travels through North America and Canada. London.' 1799. 4to.) As 

 the result of general observation of the tribes of Canada and the Lakes, he says that 

 u an Indian child, soon after it is born, is swathed with cloths or skins (vide Long, 

 Notes), laid on its back, and bound down on a piece of thick board, spread with soft 

 moss." Hoops protect the face. The cradle- board is suspended on the mother's back 

 when traveling, otherwise hung by the head-strap. Infants are also put in hammocks, 

 and when able to crawl are released from the cradle board (p. 387). 



"Their infants are borne "with haire on their heads, and are of com- 

 plexion white as our nation, but their mothers in tbeir iufancy make a 

 bath of Walnut leaves, huskes of Walnuts and such things as will stain 

 their skinne for ever, wherein they did & washe them to make them 

 tawny. The coloure of their haire is black & their eyes black." 



Note. — The idea that the Indian was born white was very commonly 

 entertained in the first half of the seventeenth century. Lechford, in his 

 "Plaine Dealing," p. 50, says: "They are of complexion swarthy & tawny. 

 Their children are borne while, but they bedaube them with oyle & colours 

 presently." Josselyn also speaks of the Indians " dying their children 

 with a liquor of boiled Hemlock-Bark." (Two Voyages, p. 128.) Speaking 

 of the Virginia women Smith says : " To make their children hardie in 

 the coldest mornings they them wash in the rivers, & by payntiug & 

 oyntments so tanue their skinnes that after a year or two no weather 

 will hurt them." (True, Travels, vol. I, p. 131.) Strachey gives a more par- 

 ticular account of the supposed process : " The Indians are generally 

 of a cullour browne or rather tawny, which they cast themselves into 

 with a kind of arsenic stone, & of the same hue are their women, how- 

 beit yt is supposed neither of them naturally borne so discolored $ for 

 Capt. Smith (lyving somtymes amongst them) affirmeth how they are 

 from the womb indifferent white, but as the men, so doe the women dye 

 & disguise themselves into this tawny cowler, esteeming yt the best 

 beauty to be neerest such a kynd of murrey as a sodden quince is of 

 (to liken y t to the neerest coulor I can), for which they daily anoint both 

 face & bodyes all over with such a kind of fucus or unguent as can cast 

 them into that stay ne." (Historic, 63.) ("New English Canaan." Prince 

 Soc. Boston, 1883, p. 147.) 



"These infants are carried at their mothers' backs by the help of a 

 cradle made of a board forket at both ends whereon the cbilde is fast 

 bound and wrapped in furres; his knees thrust up towards his bellie, 

 because they may be the more usefull for them when he sitteth, which 

 is as a dogge does on his bumme ; and this cradle surely preserves them 



