The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1873-06-13
Queer Things About Babies.

A great many curious things happen
to babies in this round world of ours.
One thing is, planting them. This is
done by the dark-skinned women of
Guinea, and isn't half so dreadful as it
sounds. The mother digs hole in the
ground, stands baby in it, and then
packs the warm sand around him to
keep him in place, as you would set out
a rose-bush. 1t keeps him out of mis-
chief, and he can play i'll the sand while
his mother works. All day long he stays
in his odd crib, and Mt night, when she
is done with her work, he is dug out
When this agricultural mother wants to
carry baby about, she ties him into a
little chair, which she straps to her
back. If it is some very grand occasion,
he is dressed neatly in stripes of white
paint, and ornamented with dozens of
brass bracelets and rings on arms and
legs. A funny-looking baby he must
be
If you don't fancy crib of sand for
a baby, what do you think of big shoe,
stuffed with moss, to make it comfort
able? The droll little Laps cradle their
babies in that way. The shoe is large,
of course, and made of reindeer skin
1t comes up high at the back, like the
slippers we wear nowadays, and is turned
up at the toes. The moss with which it
is stuffed is the famous reindeer moss,
soft and white and the odd little black
eyed baby looks very comfortable hang
ing from the tree, or slung across its
mothers back.
Perhaps this baby, who lives in a shoe,
is no more comical than the baby who
lives in fur bag, another sober little
black-eyed baby, away off in the shivery
Esquimaux huts. Besides being cud-
died up in a fur bag at his mothers
back, this round-faced little fellow
strange kind of animal peeping out in
the world.
You may have seen the Indian baby,
or papoose, bound flat to board-poOr
little creature One tribe-the Flat
heads-make a rude sort of box of
bark or willow-work, and wrap the baby
("little man," they call HIM in piece
of blanket, strap him tightly to the box,
and hang it across two sticks. Besides
this, the unfortunate little fellow has a
board bound over his forehead to make
him Flathead
Even the Russian peasant mother
cradles her baby on a square board,
hung from the wall by strings from each
corner, like the pan in balance.
In India the funny little black babies
either sit on their mothers hips and
hold on by clasping their hands over
her shoulder, or they take airy rides in
o basket on her head.
Tbase babies are e1eoantlv drassad in
armlets, bracelets, anklets, and leglets
Off one might make a world, fnger-rings,
toe-rings, earrings, and nose-rlngs. As
to clothes, they don't need many when
they wear so much jewelry.
China babies-not dolls, but babies
that live in China-are sadly in the way
among the poor. Sometimes they are
Graded in bag on their mothers back,
and sometimes they are tied to the backs
of older children, who go about as il
they had no such load. Many poor Chi.
nese live in boats on the river, and the
baby that comes to such family is tied
by long rope to the mast. 1t is long
enough to let the child creep around
but not long enough to let him fall over
board There is another curious custom
regarding babies which prevails in some
parts of China. If one dies, it is not
buried, as elder people are it is thrown
out carelessly, and crackers are fired of
at the door, Here and there, at the cor
ners of streets, charitable people built
small houses with openings to drop tn,
neglected little bodies in, and that il
all the burial they get.-Our Young
Folks.