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Hannah of Kentucky - James Otis |
It does not seem reasonable that people who delight in torturing others could have any love for their own family, and yet father says that a squaw takes as good care of a baby, after her own fashion, as does a white woman.
What amused Billy and was his description of an Indian cradle. It is nothing more than a thin board with a foot rest at the bottom covered with soft moss, so that the child, when laid on, the board, shall not bruise its feet; at the top there is a stout wooden hoop which extends out three or four inches so that the child's head may be protected from swinging boughs or falling branches when the mother carries it on her back, as she always does while attending to her work in the cornfield or the lodge.
The baby is wrapped in strips of softest deer hide, the bandages beginning at the feet and winding around until even the arms and hands are bound tightly to the child's sides, while the face, except for the hood of which I have spoken, is left ' uncovered. There are two holes, one on either side of the upper end of the board, through which are passed thongs of buck skin, serving to tie the cradle, baby, and all, on the mother's back; for fastenings are passed over her shoulders, under her arms, and then tied to the bottom of the board in such a fashion that even though she bends over at her work of hoeing or cooking, the odd cradle cannot move about.
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