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. CHAPTER IX 
THE CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH 
The Milky Way, say the Parry Islanders, is an enormous bucket- 
handle that holds the earth in place; if it ever breaks the world will come 
to an end. The “ life-line ” ( madjimadzuin : “ moving-life ”) is a human 
Milky Way; it is the chain connecting those who have gone before with 
those who follow, the line of ancestors and descendants together with all 
the inheritance factors they carry with them. There are two strands in 
this line or chain, a right and a left, a male and a female; and they are 
joined but loosely. It is woman’s duty, therefore, to preserve the line 
intact, to bear many children lest the family, the clan, and the whole 
human race itself perish. Just as a tree has many branches, some of 
which flourish and some die, so it is with the clan and family; if all the 
branches die the tree, the family, or the clan perishes. 
To the Parry Islanders, therefore, the preservation of a strong life- 
line was the primary concern of every man and woman in the community. 
It demanded from them upright lives, for the parent who sinned might so 
shame his infant children that they would refuse to live; or else he might 
reap some disability that would descend to his children and grandchildren. 
“A iboy on the Indian reserve at Shawanaga had a paralysed leg. The parents 
called in a medicine-man, who said that the lad had inherited the malady from his 
great-grandfather. The medicine-man tried to discover the proper remedy, but at 
every attempt his vision blurred. The boy died” (Pegahmagabow). 
A child required the tenderest care even before it saw the light of 
day. Both before and after it was born the mother talked to it, teaching 
its soul and shadow such information as the habits of the animals it would 
encounter as it grew up. Until it was able to walk alone she carried it on 
her back within a cradle of basswood or cedar , 1 securing it either with 
straps, one across its chest and the other across its legs, or else by lacing 
its skin- or blanket- wrapping tightly down the front. For its mattress 
she gathered sphagnum moss or rotten cedar; instead of diapers she used 
sphagnum moss, and instead of talcum powder either rotten oak or 
powdered charcoal. Sometimes she removed the baby from its cradle to 
let it crawl upon the ground, or she crooned it to sleep within a hammock 
made from twisted cedar bark or basswood twine. To strengthen its legs 
after it began to crawl she danced it up and down to the accompaniment 
of 11 drum-beats ” on a board or on the ground. 
In a world governed by spiritual forces, however, the infant’s spiritual 
needs were quite as important as its bodily ones. Although a baby might 
appear to learn nothing for several months, the Parry Islanders thought 
that its soul and shadow were extremely active, conscious of many things 
that were hidden from adult eyes. Objects that its parents could not see 
1 The bow over the head of the cradle was made from white ash, birch, or other easily bent wood. Normally 
a cradle was kept from one generation to another, but, if a baby died it was either destroyed or, more rarely, trans- 
ferred to another family. 
