One of my main reasons for choosing this particular cradleboard is that the museum file includes details of it being owned originally by a known Native American person, unlike many others I came across in different museum collections or auctions, which had very scarce data available and often simply cited a broad region as their provenance.

Toy cradleboards are models of ‘real’ cradleboards, used by different Native American Nations as portable cots or baby carriers, and were (still are, in some places) traditionally given to young girls for role playing and learning about caring for children. There are some wonderful cradleboards created by Native American artists today, both for babies and for use as toys – see for instance this beaded toy cradleboard by Juanita Growing Thunder. I came across an exhibition called ‘Dakobinaawaswaan (Baby in a Cradleboard)’ held in a Thunder Bay, Ontario art gallery which offers a good overview of cradleboards from different indigenous communities in North America.

This one was collected in 1910 by anthropologist and ethnologist Mark Raymond Harrington, who was assisted by Chief William M. Skye (a.k.a. Bill Skye, Peoria Nation), as part of ‘fieldwork sponsored by George Heye’. Heye’s collection would grow significantly and eventually serve as the basis for the collection held at the National Museum of the American Indian, where this cradleboard can be found today.

It was most likely created between 1900 and 1908 and was collected from someone named Jane Shaw (Sac and Fox Nation.) I searched for more information regarding Jane Shaw, and found some photographs of her, as well as some comments in one particular publication.

All photographs I found were taken by Frank Rinehart (or perhaps his assistant Adolph Muhr) during the Indian Congress held from August to October 1898 jointly with the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska. At the time, this was the largest gathering of Native American tribes to date, bringing together 500 Native Americans representing 35 different Nations. The idea eventually became to provide a sort of exhibition with displays of ‘real ‘live’ Indians’ – here I saw several comments comparing this to zoos – and they even brought out Geronimo from prison as a star attraction (you can read some more about the event here).

There are two images of Jane Shaw posing alone (see here, and then here in profile), and two where she posed with others in a group (see here and here) listed as Kickapoo Delegates: Gaganichika, Ada Shaw (a.k.a. Clear Day), Payoki (a.k.a. Dew Drop / Mrs. Jane Shaw), Kiwena (a.k.a. Fannie Growing Horn) with infant (unnamed), and Johnny Growing Horn.

The reason for the whole group being described ‘Kickapoo Delegates’ is that the man in the back (Gaganichika – He Who Knows All About It, a.k.a. Oscar Wilde) was part of the Kickapoo tribe and married a Sac woman (possibly the young woman named Kiwena?). Both photos show the baby in its cradleboard, in one photograph it is crying, and in the other it has its head turned and is possibly sleeping. I spent a while looking at the little boy (Johnny Growing Horn), who is frowning and has his hands firmly in his pockets.  

Given that the estimated date of creation for this toy cradleboard is 1900-1908, it makes me wonder who it was made for – perhaps the girl on the left in the group photographs, Ada Shaw? And was she Jane’s daughter or grand-daughter? Here is a picture of her on her own.

I subsequently found a photograph of the Sac & Fox delegation, for which Jane Shaw and the girl also posed. Here, we are told that the girl who was referenced as ‘Ada Shaw’ in the Kickapoo portraits is called ‘Edna Shaw’.

My next stop was a 1912 publication by Charles Ransley (who wrote a selection of books on local history and genealogy) entitled ‘Pioneer narratives of the first twenty-five years of Kansas history[…]’, where we are told that Jane Shaw was the daughter of a half-chief of the Sauk (Sac) tribe, called Kaw Paw Kof, who was quite a well-known orator. I have been unable to find a date of birth for Jane Shaw, though this might be quite straightforward to do.

Ransley writes:

“There is much said about him and his two daughters; Jane, who went off to Baldwin school along with Fanny Goodell in these days; and his little girl, Lizzie, who attended the Mission School and Rev. Duvall baptized, and who one day caught her clothes on fire from the stove and was burned so that she died.”

So we know Jane lost her sister when she was young. We also know her father took his own life (from context, it would seem this happened around the 1860s) when he was terminally ill, which was not uncommon.

 We are also told that:

“Jane, on account of her father's prominence as an orator, was one selected to go along with Fanny Goodell up to the Baldwin school. […] Their expenses of schooling were all paid out of the Nation's funds. Jane got a fairly good education and was a good piano player. But something happened, she never told so that I could get hold of it, but some young white fellow whose name I dare not write here was supposed to have trifled with her affections. […] She immediately quit the school, quit all ways of civilization and intercourse with the whites as long as she was in Kansas, married a blanket Indian and became no better herself. […]”

However, after about ten years:

“It came about that she visited somewhere where she was known and where they had a piano. The lady had company but they didn't know Jane only that she was some Indian squaw with a family. […] To the surprise of everyone she seated herself at the instrument and played from memory several pieces as good as anyone. She seemed to forget from that time on the vow to lead an Indian life. Her blanket Indian husband died. She married again Wm. Shaw, one of the council men, and I think resided at the Agency. [..]”

There are many comments in this text that stood out in a particularly ghastly way, so inevitably I ended up going down rabbit holes about, among other things, the use of the racist and misogynist slur squaw (which continues to be used in place names in the US). I also ended up looking through the Bureau of Indian Affairs Industrial Surveys of the 1920s, which were fascinating documents and also contained plenty of casual comments that stuck in my head ("she is a very industrious, good little woman", and “industrious couple, but slack housekeeping and poor farming”.)

I would be interested to know how this toy cradleboard was collected. Above, I said that it was obtained Mark Raymond Harrington, who was assisted by Chief William M. Skye, from the Peoria Nation. I wonder how William Skye assisted, and whether there were any transactions involved with those who parted with the objects. This duo collected several other playthings from Jane Shaw, including a  shinny stick (see the game shinny), a wonderful double ball (read about the game double ball), and a set of bone dice painted blue. You can see all of the 12 items collected from Jane Shaw here.

The Sac & Fox Nation now has a population of about 3800 people. They try to keep their language alive as much as possible – I enjoyed seeing a video of Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle’s ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’ in Sauk, and I tried practising some basic phrases.  

I like the way the blankets and the layers have been arranged in this cradle to create a lovely combination of textures and colours, topped off with little bells along the top bar – not unlike the bars of pushchairs or highchairs in other parts of the world. I probably spent longer drawing this toy cradleboard than I have done with any of the other portraits so far, trying to get all the folds and details. It made me feel like curling up in bed and tucking myself in tightly under layers of pleasantly weighty, colourful blankets and drifting off into a nice, deep sleep.  

41. Cat Skittles