The Strand Magazine : an illustrated monthly. Vol. 1, no. 4, April 1891 / edited by George Newnes.

Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Strand Magazine : an illustrated monthly. Vol. 1, no. 4, April 1891 / edited by George Newnes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    349 grass on the ground, in all the simplicity in which Nature brought him into the world, and crams himself with earth or whatever he can lay his little black hands on. Akin to the negro’s treatment of children —though considerably in advance as regards tenderness and picturesqueness—is that of the Red Indians of North America. The father and mother combine to make a very curious and ornamental close cradle or bed for the “ papoose. In shape it is not un¬ like the long oval shield of the Zulu. The father cuts it out of wood or stout bark with his tomahawk and scalping-knife, and covers it with deer or buffalo skin, or, if he has not these, with matting or the softest bark of trees, leaving the upper side loose and open. The mother then adorns and em¬ broiders it with beads and grasses, and lines and pads it with the softest grass or moss or rags she can find. The “ papoose ’’ is lightly strapped in with soft thongs fastened to the board and passing under his arms, and then the covering is laced over him as one laces up a shoe, and nothing but the face of the “papoose” is left exposed. Thus done up, baby can be hung (with a thong attached to his cradle) on the branch of a tree, or from the pole of the wigwam, or set in a corner out of the way. It may seem to us that the close confinement and the upright position of these nests cannot be very comfortable, but it is said that after tumbling about a while on the grass or among the dogs of the wigwam the Indian baby frequently cries to go back to his solitary nest. In this wise, too, is he carried, slung over his mother’s back, when the tribe is on the march. The oval thing we have described is the prevalent pattern of cradle among American Indians, though in the extreme north or in the extreme south modifications of the style obtain. The Flat-head mother, for instance, makes her papoose into a round bundle, with folds of bark and thongs of deer-skin, and carries it in a wooden receptacle something like a canoe, slung on her back, with a little pent-house or shade projecting over the baby’s face. It is worth noting that this complete swaddling of infants is almost universal among both barbarous and civilised peoples who dwell in sub-tropical or temperate climates. It is done not so much (or not only) to keep the child warm, but to prevent it from scratching itself, from moving about and hurting itself, and from bruising itself or breaking its tender bones if it should chance to fall. A baby, however, that is A A