150 
wood, or birch bark.^ Little sisters and girl cousins played with it 
on the grass in the sunshine and guarded it inside the tent or cabin 
from the half-starved dogs that prowled around outside. When sick- 
ness came, old women brought forth their bags of different simples, 
and medicine-men invoked their supernatural powers to retrieve 
60010 
Tsimshian baby in its wooden cradle. 
(Photo hy D. JenneHn.) 
and replace the infant’s stolen soul, or to withdraw from its tiny 
body the magic bone or stone presumably implanted there by some 
evil sorcerer. Mother-lore handed down from generation to genera- 
tion taught the Indians many wise practices, but conditions of life 
were so hard, ignorance of certain elementary rules in child-welfare 
so general, that the infant mortality was terrific. 
1 The Coast Salish, Nootka, and Kwakiutl Indians of Rrilish Columbia attached to tlieir cradles 
a pad, usually of cedar bark, that by slow pressure flattened the baby's forehead. They considered 
this defonnation a mark of beauty. The Eskimo, and some of the Northern Indians, did not use a 
cradle, tint .strappcfl the baby against the back imdenieath the fur clothing. 
