CRADLEBOARD

1900

Unknown

X1982.44.01

Montana's indigenous women used cradleboards to carry their babies, enabling mothers to keep their arms free for other activities while ensuring the infants' safety. Designs and materials varied from tribe to tribe. This cradleboard, likely Shoshone, features soft white buckskin attached to a wooden plank with brass tacks. The floral design is made of glass seed beads which, like the tubular beads on the fringe, are likely much older than the cradleboard itself, which dates from 1900. The tri-foliate motif, popular among Montana tribes, has its origins in the beadwork of the Métis voyageurs who came to this region with the fur trade. The Shoshone people once populated much of Montana, but were pushed south by the Blackfeet and west by migrating Hidatsa, Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes in the early 1700s. Archaeological evidence-including pictographs and hunting sites-throughout central and southern Montana testifies to the Shoshones' long occupation of this region.

Shoshone