"(4) It is indeed a cradle, to be hung upon the limbs to rock, answering literally to the nursery-rhyme:—
'Rock-a-bye baby upon the tree-top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough bends, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, and cradle, and all.'
"(5) It is also a playhouse and baby-jumper. On many—nearly all—specimens may be seen dangling objects to evoke the senses, foot-rests by means of which the little one may exercise its legs, besides other conveniences anticipatory of the child's needs.
"(6) The last set of functions to which the frame is devoted are those relating to what we may call the graduation of infancy, when the papoose crawls out of its chrysalis little by little, and then abandons it altogether. The child is next seen standing partly on the mother's cincture and partly hanging to her neck, or resting like a pig in a poke within the folds of her blanket."
Professor Mason sees in the cradle-board or frame "the child of geography and of meteorology," and in its use "a beautiful illustration of Bastian's theory of 'great areas.'" In the frozen North, for example, "the Eskimo mother carries her infant in the hood of her parka whenever it is necessary to take it abroad. If she used a board or a frame, the child would perish with the cold."
The varieties of cradles are almost endless. We have the "hood" (sometimes the "boot") of the Eskimo; the birch-bark cradle (or hammock) of several of the northern tribes (as in Alaska, or Cape Breton); the "moss-bag" of the eastern Tinné, the use of which has now extended to the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company; the "trough-cradle" of the Bilqula; the Chinook cradle, with its apparatus for head-flattening; the trowel-shaped cradle of the Oregon coast; the wicker-cradle of the Hupas; the Klamath cradle of wicker and rushes; the Pomo cradle of willow rods and wicker-work, with rounded portion for the child to sit in; the Mohave cradle, with ladder-frame, having a bed of shredded bark for the child to lie upon; the Yaqui cradle of canes, with soft bosses for pillows; the Nez Percé cradle-board with buckskin sides, and the Sahaptian, Ute, and Kootenay cradles which resemble it; the Moki cradle-frame of coarse wicker, with an awning; the Navajo cradle, with wooden hood and awning of dressed buckskin; the rude Comanche cradle, made of a single stiff piece of black-bear skin; the Blackfoot cradle of lattice-work and leather; the shoe-shaped Sioux cradle, richly adorned with coloured bead-work; the Iroquois cradle (now somewhat modernized), with "the back carved in flowers and birds, and painted blue, red, green, and yellow." Among the Araucanians of Chili we meet with a cradle which "seems to be nothing more than a short ladder, with cross-bars," to which the child is lashed. In the tropical regions and in South America we find the habit of "carrying the children in the shawl or sash, and bedding them in the hammock." Often, as in various parts of Africa, the woman herself forms the cradle, the child clinging astride her neck or hips, with no bands or attachments whatever. Of woman as carrier much may be read in the entertaining and instructive volume of Professor Mason (113). The primitive cradle, bed, and carrier, was the mother.
Father and Child.
With many of the more primitive races, the idea so tritely expressed in our familiar saying, "He is a chip of the old block,"—patris est filius, "he is the son of his father,"—and so beautifully wrought out by Shakespeare,—
"Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip,
The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles,
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger,"
has a strong hold, making itself felt in a thousand ways and fashions. The many rites and ceremonies, ablutions, fastings, abstentions from certain foods and drinks, which the husband has to undergo and submit to among certain more or less uncivilized peoples, shortly before, or after, or upon, the occasion of the birth of a child, or while his wife is pregnant, arise, in part at least, from a firm belief in the influence of parent upon child and the intimate sympathy between them even while the latter is yet unborn. Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn says, they believe that if the father should eat the flesh of the capybara, the child would have large protruding teeth like that animal, while if he should eat that of the labba, the child's skin would be spotted. "Apparently there is also some idea that for the father to eat strong food, to wash, to smoke, to handle weapons, would have the same result as if the new-born baby ate such food, washed, smoked, or played with edged tools." The connection between the father and the child, the author thinks, is thought by these Indians to be much closer than that existing between the mother and her offspring (477. 218). Much has been written about, and many explanations suggested for, this ancient and widespread custom. The investigations of recent travellers seem to have cast some light upon this difficult problem in ethnology.