Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1887 — Buying a Cradle. [ARTICLE]

Buying a Cradle.

It is known that the Indians expend at times a great amount of labor and skill upon some article of apparel or of domestic use. An English traveler going through their territory was struck by the expensive decoration of their cradles. It seems most likely that he means, by the cradle, the basket in whidh the papoose is carried, slung over the shoulders of its mother, rather than such an article as the cradle of a white child. To the north of us as we traveled was a large Indian reservation, and, at more than one station, I saw them crouching about the building; but I should not have mentioned them had it not been that I saw a white man trying to buy a cradle from a squaw. He offered twenty dollars for it, but she would not even turn her head to look at the money. It is quite possible that the mother thought he was bargaining for the papoose as well as the cradle. But 1 was assured that these women sometimes expend an incredible amount of labor, and, indeed, for Indians, of money also, upon their papoose-panniers. One case was vouched for, of an offer of $l2O being refused, the Indians stating that there was SBO worth of beads upon the work of art, and that it had taken eleven years to complete it.