Among the Pueblos they have a swinging cradle. It consists of a circular
or oval ring made of a flexible stick bent and tied together at the ends.
Leather thongs are laced back and forth across it so as to make an open
netting. The cradle is then hung from the rafters by cords. In it the baby
swings.
The baby who is too large for his baby-board is carried around on his
mother’s or sister’s, or even his brother’s, back. The little wriggler is
laid upon the back, and then the blanket is bound around him to hold him
firmly, often leaving only his head in sight, peering out above the
blanket. With her baby fastened upon her back in this way the mother works
in the fields or walks to town.
Among some tribes, particularly in the southern states and in Mexico, the
baby strides the mother’s back, and a little leg and foot hang out on
either side from the blanket that holds him in place. Among some tribes in
California the women use great round baskets tapering to a point below;
these are carried by the help of a carrying strap passing around the
forehead. During the season of the salmon fishing these baskets are used
in carrying fish; at such times baby and fish are thrown into the basket
together and carried along.
The Indian boys play many games. When I used to meet Sac and Fox boys in
the spring-time, each one used to have with him little sticks made of
freshly cut branches of trees. These had the bark peeled off so they would
slip better. They were cut square at one end, and bluntly pointed at the
other. Each boy had several of these, so marked that he would know his
own. When two boys agreed to play, one held one of his sticks, which was
perhaps three feet long and less than half an inch thick, between his
thumb and second finger, with the forefinger against the squared end and
the pointed end forward. He then sent it sliding along on the grass as far
as it would go. Then the other boy took his turn, trying of course to send
his farther.
The young men have a somewhat similar game, but their sticks are carefully
made of hickory and have a blunt-pointed head and a long slender tail or
shaft. These will skim a long way over snow when it has a crust upon it.
One gambling game is much played by big boys and young men among the Sacs
and Foxes. It is called moccasin. It is a very stupid game, but the
Indians are fond of it. Some moccasins are turned upside down, and one
player conceals under one of them a small ball or other object. Another
tries then to guess where the ball lies.
[Illustration.]
Group of Ball Sticks.
Many of the Indian tribes had some form of ball game. Sometimes all the
young men of a town would take part. The game consisted in driving the
ball over a goal. The players on both sides were much in earnest, and the
games were very exciting. In the play a racket was used consisting of a
stick frame and a netting of thongs. The shape of this racket or ball
stick differed among different tribes. Sometimes one racket was used by
one player, sometimes two. Among the Iroquois the game is called by the
French name of lacrosse. The young men of one village often played against
those of another. They used a curious long racket consisting of a curved
stick with netting across the bend. The Choctaws, Cherokees, and other
tribes near them have two rackets for each player.
Catlin tells us that in their games there would sometimes be six to eight
hundred or a thousand young men engaged. He says: “I have made it an
uniform rule, whilst in the Indian country, to attend every ball-play I
could hear of, if I could do it by riding a distance of twenty or thirty
miles; and my usual custom has been on such occasions to straddle the back
of my horse and look on to the best advantage. In this way I have sat, and
oftentimes reclined and almost dropped from my horse’s back, with
irresistible laughter at the succession of droll tricks and kicks and
scuffles which ensue, in the almost superhuman struggles for the ball.
Their plays generally commence at about nine o’clock, or near it, in the
morning; and I have more than once balanced myself on my pony from that
time till nearly sundown, without more than one minute of intermission at
a time, before the game has been decided.”
But these great games of ball with hundreds of players are quite past, and
the sport, where still kept up, grows less and less each year.
OTIS T. MASON.—Ethnologist. In charge of the department of
Ethnology in the U. S. National Museum, Washington. Has written
some books and many articles. Among the last is _Cradles of the
American Aborigines_.
GEORGE CATLIN.—Artist and traveler. See XXII.