A Flathead Dolly

A real baby in a cradle board.

       I wonder whatever you little girls will think of me, when you look at my picture and I tell you my name. I am sure that very, very few of you ever saw a dolly that looked the least like me before, or heard such a curious name. For I am called Skelechun, and I belong to a little girl of the Flathead tribe in North America.

       Years ago, before my mistress grew old enough to be able to play with me, she used to look almost exactly like I do now, and her mother used to carry her about in a cradle just like the one in which you see me hanging. For really there is only my head to be seen, and all the rest is cradle, just the same as the ones in which the women carry the live children and hang them up on the trees while they work. My cradle has been made especially pretty with red, white, and blue glass beads, sewn on in a pattern; but the cradles in which the live little girls and boys are carried are usually made of wood or bark, hollowed out, and suspended with rope. Some of those who dwell inland hang bells upon these cradles, so that as the baby is carried along, or swings gently on the tree bough, the bells continually tinkle and ring.

       I daresay you wonder why we are called Flatheads, and how it is that our foreheads slope back in such a peculiar manner. This is due to a very curious custom of the tribe, for when the children are quite babies their whole body is swaddled and bound up. Pads with a board are then placed across the forehead, so that it is gradually pressed flatter and flatter, and baby is laced into the wood cradle by means of a cord passed from side to side. This flattening, as you may imagine, is far from a comfortable business, especially for the girls, for their foreheads have to be much flatter than those of the boys if the young men are to think them beautiful when they grow up. And yet they would feel very angry if their heads were allowed to grow in the usual way, for you cannot find a greater insult than to say, "Hoo, your mother was too lazy to flatten your head!"

       I am a very happy dolly, and my little mistress loves me very much, as her father and mother do her, for all the Flatheads love their children. It is perhaps better to be a girl than a boy, for the girls are thought much more of, because when they grow up they can be sold to husbands, and a good price is obtained by the parents. While they live at home, although they have plenty of time to play and enjoy themselves, the girls have to learn all that there is to know about home-keeping, while the boys accompany their fathers and brothers on the hunting expeditions. We are a very happy family indeed, especially in summer, when food is plentiful, and Atuni, who is the father of my little mistress, often shakes his head at us both and says: "Oh, Skelechun, Skelechun, you are a bad pair, both of you."

       One of the chief things we do is to make baskets which we trade in the towns for money upon which to live in winter. If you have ever seen any of the work that our family has done, you will be very surprised at its excellence and neatness. One thing I must tell you before we part, and that is how my little mistress boils water when her father or mother wants a meal. We never put a kettle over the fire and wait for the water to heat like you do. We make the fire and heat a number of stones red-hot; then these are dropped into the water, and, as they cool, picked out and more red-hot ones dropped in, and you would be very surprised if you saw how quickly our meal was ready and the water hot.

       Yes, though my name is so funny, and my head so flat, I am a very happy dolly, and I hope that when Atuni sells my mistress to a husband, she will take me with her, for I know that I am very handsome indeed.

Carol Bremer-Bennett of Rehoboth Christian School
 talks about the Navajo cradleboard and other
 cultural/spiritual matters.