Cradleboard Dolls or Comanche Deer Skin Dolls

cradleboard.

 Comanche deer skin dolls and cradleboards – The Camanche newborn was swaddled and remained with its mother in the tipi for a few days. The baby was placed in a cradleboard, and the mother went back to work. She could easily carry the cradleboard on her back, or prop it against a tree where the baby could watch her while she collected seeds or roots. Cradleboards consisted of a flat board to which a basket was attached. The latter was made from rawhide straps, or a leather sheath that laced up the front. With soft, dry moss as a diaper, the young one was safely tucked into the leather pocket. During cold weather, the baby was wrapped in blankets, and then placed in the cradleboard. The baby remained in the cradleboard for about ten months; then it was allowed to crawl around.

      Children learned from example, by observing and listening to their parents and others in the band. As soon as she was old enough to walk, a girl followed her mother about the camp and played at the daily tasks of cooking and making clothing. She was also very close to her mother’s sisters, who were called not aunt but pia, meaning mother. She was given a little deerskin doll, which she took with her everywhere. She learned to make all the clothing for the doll.

Deer skin dolls and cradleboards:

• A contemporary version of a “deer skin” doll
• Vintage Plains Native American Baby Papoose Cradle with Deer Skin and Beading
• Apsaalooke (Crow/Absaroke); Cradle, ca. 1880; native-tanned deer or bison hide, wood, glass beads, sinew, paint, thread. from the Hood Museum
• A contemporary Sioux art doll made with techniques similar to the ancestors
• River Trading Post often displays deer skin doll prototypes
• Cloth doll with buckskin face at the Wisconsin History Museum
• Artist Sharon Skolnick makes leather, beaded dolls

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