THE INDIAN AND HER BABY
I have elsewhere spoken of the Indian woman’s reception of her child.
It is welcomed with joy, and yet in its first hour’s treatment most
white women would think its life would terminate. After seeing that
it breathes properly--that is, through the nose--the mother carries
her little one to the nearest creek or water-hole and gives it a good
bath. Cold water has no terrors for her, and she does not fear its use
for the child. With this cold bath the child may be said to enter its
earthly existence. Henceforth life is to be a succession of hardening
processes. Indian babies get no foolish and weakening coddling. They
are loved dearly and petted often, but are made to lie down on flat
boards or basket cradles, with arms and legs strapped down, and are
thus early accustomed to physical restraint. They sleep out of doors
from the day of their birth, and become accustomed to all kinds of
weather. For an Indian child who has taken cold we shall look in vain.
The name, the thought of such an ill is unknown.
If the parents have to move from canyon up to plateau, or go off to far
away forests for the winter’s supply of pinion nuts, the child is put
into its carrying basket, swung on the back of the mother, dependent
from her forehead, and carried either on horseback or on foot to the
new stopping place. Simplicity and naturalness accompany every stage of
the little one’s life until the age of puberty, when the child-life is
supposed to end, and the man or woman life begins.
[Illustration: A HEALTHY AND HAPPY INDIAN BABY.]
Now, while of very necessity our method of treating white children
must be different from this, we can learn many lessons from the Indian
that will materially benefit our race. The key-stone of the whole idea
is found in the words: “No coddling.” Not long ago I went to the home
of an artist friend. His wife had just presented him with a fine,
healthy son. The wife’s mother was present, and had taken charge of
the young mother and her baby. The room was stifling hot, so that I
could scarcely breathe, and when I went to see the baby it was wrapped
up in a cradle with a sheet and _three_ blankets _over its head_. At
once I opened the doors and windows, taking good precaution to see that
the mother did not take cold. I gave both grandmother and new mother
a lecture upon the monstrous folly and cruelty of thus depriving the
new-born child of needed air for its expanding lungs. The lesson was
accepted in the proper spirit, for the father fully agreed with me,
and on the grandmother’s departure, a few days later, the coddling,
smothering process ceased, and a cold bath, sleeping out of doors, and
a generally healthy treatment of the child substituted. I know this is
an exaggerated case, but it serves as an illustration of the wrongful
and excessive “coddling” we give our children, from which follow such
evils as weak lungs, weak throats, readiness to take cold, etc.
As the exaggerated opposite of this, let me relate the treatment I
accorded to my own children.
When my first son was born, we were so located that I was compelled
to be both physician and nurse. His first experience--after a good
hot bath--was a cold bath, and within half an hour of his birth he
was sleeping out of doors. At five weeks of age he and his mother
accompanied me on an eight-hundred-mile drive over the plains and
deserts of Nevada. We camped out, slept on the ground, and gave him,
whenever possible, an open air bath in the cold mountain brooks that
occasionally were met with.
A year or so after the second boy was born I was stationed in the
little town of Cedarville, Cal., and one of the happiest remembrances
of my life there was in winter when the snow was deep upon the ground.
I would place a canvas upon the floor of my small study, where a good
fire blazed in the stove, fetch in a couple of washtubs full of snow,
then undress the youngsters, and watch them as they sat in the snow,
rubbed it on their naked bodies and laughed and shouted and crowed with
delight when I gently snowballed them.
While they were little tots, every morning before being dressed they
stood outside while I threw--not poured, but threw,--a bucketful of
cold water over them. Then, after a vigorous and hearty rub down, they
went with me for a walk where they were allowed to run and jump and
romp to their heart’s content.
This I call a rational treatment of children. It certainly is a healthy
treatment, and those brought up under such an Indian method will never
know the aches, pains, ills, and weaknesses that most white children
are afflicted with. And I would treat my baby girls, if I had any,
exactly the same as my boys, for the health of the race more nearly
depends upon the health of the future mothers than upon that of the
future fathers.
If it be thought that I am too extreme I quote an article entire from
a recent _Good Health_, entitled “Strenuous Health Culture,” in which
it will be seen that others have done the same thing with equally good
results.
“‘Time was when clothing, sumptuous or for use,
Save their own painted skins, our sires had none.’
“Yet they were far healthier and hardier than the present much-clad
generation. Why does the savage go naked with impunity while the
civilized man shivers in his clothes, and is a prey to colds,
pneumonia, and a variety of diseases unknown to the naked savage?
“One of the marvels of the normal human body is its wonderful
adaptability--the maintenance of its equilibrium under constantly
varying conditions. By the regulation and adaptation of the heat
functions of the body the bodily temperature is maintained at the
normal standard in spite of the changing temperature of the surrounding
atmosphere. But when the body is artificially heated continually, as
by over-clothing and over-heated rooms, its functions become to some
degree dormant, and in consequence the natural bodily resistance is
greatly lessened.
“The effort of the body to resist cold stimulates and strengthens. One
who can resist cold can resist all kinds of disease germs. This has
been demonstrated by the success of the ‘cold-air cure’ for a variety
of diseases.
“The old-time coddling of delicate children, which still further
lessened their vitality and weakened their powers of endurance, is
now giving place to its opposite. Judicious exposure to cold has been
found to be one of the best methods of strengthening weak infants
and developing healthy children. At a recent conference of mothers
held in Minnesota, they were advised that a snowbank makes one of the
best cradles. One mother who had tried this treatment thought that it
accounted for the unusual health and strength of the family.
“A Milwaukee physician, Dr. John E. Worden, has adopted this strenuous
treatment to prepare his babes for the rigors of life, and up to the
present his methods have been abundantly justified by their success.
His little daughters, Shirley and Jane, aged respectively eight and
three years, are two of the firmest and healthiest bits of humanity to
whom disease of all kinds is unknown. During the cold weather these
children may be seen barefooted and bareheaded, clad only in their
cotton garments, thoroughly enjoying a romp in the snowdrifts, and
without even a goose-pimple on their skin.
“‘We are merely following out health rules,’ said Dr. Worden, speaking
of his unique methods of bringing up his children. ‘We are aiming at
prevention rather than at cure. We have brought the children up so that
they are fearless, and dread neither the ice-cold plunge nor a romp in
the snow in their bare feet. The door is always open, and they go out
when they like and return when they are ready to do so. We do not force
the children to go out in the snow barefooted; they go out of their
own free will, and play until they are tired, or their attention is
called to something else.
[Illustration: A HOPI INDIAN AT ORAIBI SHELLING CORN.]
“‘In the summer we send them out into the sun bareheaded and
barefooted, with orders to keep out of the shade. On the street cars
they are instructed to sit on the sunny side of the car. It is well
that they experience something of contrast; therefore, a cold bath is
given them daily in the warm weather. In the winter they are allowed to
go outdoors to get stimulus from the cold air.
“‘Children brought up like tender hot-house plants are likely to
contract colds and other diseases, and to die as the result of not
having robust constitutions. These children, on the contrary, will
and do escape without any sickness; and should they get sick, their
recovery is almost certain, because of their being strong and in good
condition.’
“Both Dr. Worden and his wife are graduates of the University of
Michigan, and Mrs. Worden was for a number of years before her marriage
a trained nurse.
“‘During my hospital training and institutional work,’ says Mrs.
Worden, ‘I saw so much sickness due to weakened bodies that I
investigated causes, and came to the conclusion that much of the
weakness was due to a lack of physical development, to abuses through
mistaken kindness on the part of the parents, that so weakened the
immature bodies that they could not withstand the attack of disease.
With our children, beginning from babyhood, we have had one aim, and
that is to give them strong physiques, and we have succeeded thus
far. They have never had one drop of medicine, and never been ill one
moment.’
“The clothing of these children is always light, and much the same
summer and winter. It is of cotton almost exclusively, and no
bands are ever used. In the place of stockings the easy, sensible,
comfortable Roman sandal, made only in England, is worn.
[Illustration: THE BEST NATURED BABY I EVER SAW. HER PARENTS ARE
WALLAPAIS.]
“‘We believe in clothing them as lightly as possible,’ says Mrs.
Worden, ‘depending on their excellent heat-making organs to develop
any extra warmth needed in an emergency. This stimulates a necessity
for a good, strong internal circulation of the fluids of the body, and
creates a desire to exercise a little in order to keep warm. Over-warm
children are usually lazy.’
“The Worden home is sunny and bright, with windows wide open day and
night, and the rooms kept always cool and fresh. No useless furniture,
no bric-a-brac, no draperies, harbor dust and germs. The walls and
hard-wood floors and few articles of furniture are kept scrupulously
clean, but without ornament. The whole house is given over to the
children, and there is no need for prohibitions of any sort.
“Concerning the diet of his children Dr. Worden says: ‘No national
or international problems concerning the welfare of our people are as
important as our food problem. And yet it is a very simple one, solved
by an all-wise Creator before the creation of man. Time enough is
wasted in the kitchen of our modern homes, spoiling good food by making
almost impossible mixtures and then over-cooking these, to do all the
necessary work of any nation. This careless and ignorant diet leads to
ill-health, from which there is no escape unless we learn to lead a
sensible life, eating moderately of natural foods, and these in simple
combinations.
“‘With our children, very little cow’s milk is used, largely because
of its unreliability in the city; but we do not favor an abundance of
milk anyway, after children have teeth to use on their food. Their diet
consists of fruits, cereals, nuts, and vegetables, no spices, vinegar,
etc., being used. Whole wheat flour, the bran included, is used
exclusively.
“‘They are never urged to eat. We expect them to know whether they
are hungry or not. Urging children to eat leads to overfilling of the
stomach, and this to bowel disorders, and often death. Next to urging
children to eat, as a cause of overeating, is variety. We never supply
them with a choice of foods at one meal. The diet for each meal is
simple, and yet in one season or year they get quite a variety, as
exampled by a list of the fruits they get, one kind at a time: Apples,
pears, grapes, plums, cherries, oranges, pineapples, peaches, grape
fruit, prunes, apricots, figs, dates, raisins, bananas, melons, and
the numerous kinds of berries--all choice fruit. They scorn anything
with a bad spot as being not fit to eat. Then again we buy them lots of
nuts for food, not just for the fun of cracking and eating and usually
overeating. They get nut food as a United States soldier his rations.
Next we have an immense choice of vegetables, of which they get one
kind at a meal--never two vegetables to one child at the same meal. On
such a diet it is no occasion for surprise that they have never been
sick. The good health to be derived from a simple meal more than repays
for any fancied abstinence.’
“The Worden children are already little athletes. The elder girl is the
youngest basket-ball player in Milwaukee. Every evening they exercise
for a few minutes nude, incidentally getting an air bath to the skin of
the whole body while developing and strengthening the muscles.
“Dr. and Mrs. Worden are not faddists. They are earnestly and
steadfastly endeavoring to fulfill the trust committed to them, to
develop their children into strong healthy women, to strengthen their
powers of endurance, and develop their physical faculties by bringing
them up in accordance with all the laws of health.”
* * * * *
Another thing that I would have white women learn from their Indian
sisters, is a thing they used to know but are rapidly forgetting. That
is, the joy of suckling their own children. An Indian mother that does
not suckle her own child is almost unknown. With the “superior classes”
of the white race it is the opposite of this proposition that is true.
Not only is this of great injury to the child, but it is fraught with
most serious consequences to the mother. Is it nothing that the mother
of a child willfully puts away from herself all the little, fond,
sweet intimacies that naturally grow out of this relationship; the joy
of exercise of a natural and beautiful function; the feeling that
the baby life is still being sustained by the mother’s own life-blood
transmuted by mother love and mother-processes into sweet, delicious
food that nothing else can equal?
[Illustration: A DILIGENT HOPI BASKET WEAVER, WHO IS ALSO A GOOD
MOTHER.]
It is a fact that all the higher affections and emotions of the human
soul have to be cultivated and developed. The child sees little or no
beauty in a sunset; it must be trained to recognize it. The love of
Nature grows as we cultivate it. The nobler emotions of self-sacrifice,
humility, kindliness, grow as we cultivate them, and while, where
maternity is a perfectly natural process, joy accompanies it in
all its manifestations, there is no denying the fact that in our
so-called civilization women have to cultivate the feelings connected
with the function to bring to themselves the joy they should normally
possess. But that there is a joy in suckling one’s own child many, many
mothers--true mothers--have assured me, and I wish to add my voice
to the supplications of the innocent child that every mother give of
her own sweet, loving breast to the child she has brought into the
world. Some mothers refuse because it destroys the beautiful contour of
the bust; others because it demands too close confinement, and would
therefore prohibit regular attendance upon club or social functions.
Poor women! Bartering their God-given rights and privileges for the
messes of pottage that society and club life afford--that is, afford to
mothers at the time they should be with their babes. Can any society on
earth, any club that ever existed, compensate for the loss of healthful
nutrition given from a loving mother’s breast? Let the statistics of
“bottle-fed” babies attest the dangers that accrue from the mother’s
refusal (or inability--for which she is to be pitied rather than
condemned) to suckle her own young.
[Illustration: A PROUD AND HAPPY WALLAPI MOTHER.]
[Illustration: A HOPI BABY WHO HAS NEVER YET KNOWN CLOTHES.]