Cradle or Baby Carrier (c. 1900): Art, History and Details

Cradle or Baby Carrier (c. 1900) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Many Plains peoples hold lavishly quilled or beaded cradles in high esteem—they bestow spiritual benefits on the infant and prestige and honor on the family and the maker, usually a female relative. Indeed, today and in the past, creating such a cradle is often regarded as equal to counting coup, the ultimate act of male bravery in which a warrior touches an enemy with a stick known as a coup stick. This cradle was held in the arms; others have wooden frames that can be propped against a support, such as a sofa or a tree, to ease the baby’s socialization into the community.

Object facts

• Title: Cradle or Baby Carrier
• Date: c. 1900
• Culture: Native North America, Plains, Lakota (Sioux)
• Type: Leather
• Technique: Native-tanned hide, cotton cloth, glass beads, metal beads, brass bell, sinew thread, cotton thread
• Dimensions: Overall: 24.1 x 25.4 x 85.7 cm (9 1/2 x 10 x 33 3/4 in.)
• Collection: AA - Native North America
• Department: Art of the Americas
• Accession number: 1984.1047

A detail from the museum

In the past, young Plains children spent much of their time in cradles, which remain in occasional use today.

Collection credit

Bequest of David S. McMillan

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.