Cradleboard

This type of 19th-century polychrome Woodlands cradleboard—with highly ornamented relief in carved andpainted wood—is the most celebrated by Native American specialists. Made by Mohawk relatives (womenand men) for a new baby, the iconography of the ‘tree of life’ design expresses the family’s love for the childand the clan’s happiness at receiving a new member. The technologically ingenious cradleboard allowed the swaddled baby to be strapped to the specially designed flat board and carried in the mother’s arms or on her back; it could also be propped against a tree or structure on the ground. The lively flora and fauna design suggests the verdant woodlands environment in which the Mohawk live. It also reveals a French Canadian vernacular influence, not surprising given the Mohawk’s largest reservation straddles the U.S.-Canadian border in the province of Quebec, where encounters and exchange between Native and non-Native worlds flourish