MORE ABOUT CRADLEBOARDS

The cradleboard was more than just a personal baby buggy to the Native American tribes. It was a piece of native artwork, as well as an important conduit of culture that was handed down through the generations.

California Indian cradleboards were woven out of reeds and wrapped in hides. Cradleboards of the Southwest and Plains tribes were made of wicker rods and canvas with lots of intricate beadwork.

But the Iroquois of the Eastern Woodlands of North America  made their cradleboards from the plentiful wood, especially sturdy basswood. And the Mohawk in particular were known for their carved and often painted cradleboard decorations. Usually, the father carved the board, which was then decorated by the mother and other female relatives.

This is a mid-19th Century hand-carved Mohawk cradleboard. The Pequot Museum (Mashantucket, CT) website has a slideshow of ten cradleboards, including this one, both vintage and modern, in their collection.

Here's a detail of a slightly less ornate, but just as intricately carved antique (undated) Mohawk cradleboard. (See other views here.)


Here's a link to a gorgeous Mohawk cradleboard in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, ca. 1860, from Quebec, Canada.

In practice, the carved, or otherwise decorated  side of the cradleboard went against the mother's back. The smoother inner side had a wide hoop at the top (sort of like a rollbar) to protect the baby's head, a footrest on the bottom to support the baby's feet, and either straps or hide or a blanket attached to the cradleboard to hold the baby in place.

When the baby was small, a Mohawk mother would strap her into the cradleboard and wear her on her back as she planted corn and worked in the field.

The Mohawk thought this gave every child the chance to view all people at eye level, as equals, from the very beginning of life.


(Cree mother and child, from the book American Indians, by Frederick Starr (1898), as seen online at ScienceViews

THE TREE OF LIFE

From Tory's Log ~

Mama told me that my cradleboard sang of Light Foot, an orphan with a wandering spirit who was adopted into the clan of his foster mother, "flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone," as the Mohawk say.  It sang of orenda, the unknown power that guides the people on their journey through life. It sang of Stockbridge, where many Mohawk families were invited to live alongside the white families in their English houses—until they were asked to give up the four Sacred Ceremonies and bend their knees to the white God in the mission church.

Many covered their fires and returned to their villages. But the family of Light Foot stayed on.

Near the top of the Tree of Life carved on my cradleboard, a naked branch stood out that bore only a single flower.

"Anne Keeping Faith," Mama smiled at me. "The first descendant of Light Foot to have an English name, because her papa was taught in the mission school. She was the only child her mama had."

Then came the war against the English king, when all the men of Stockbridge, white and Indian alike, went off to fight for freedom. As a child, I didn't understand what it meant, to fight for freedom, although I've had a great deal of experience in the matter since then.

By the time it was all over, Anne was carrying her own child. But her husband was far away on his first whaling voyage and Anne was too big to travel when all the other Stockbridge Indians were removed to the reserved land in the north. Evidently, there was not quite enough freedom to go around.

I met my Grandmother Anne once. She was as tall and straight as an old tree, and her face was just as brown and cracked, but tiny creases danced around her eyes and mouth when she smiled, and her cavernous laugh set the window panes rattling. She called me "Little Flower," and showed me how to husk corn. She said I was the future of the Hotinonshonni.

"Anne was taken in by her white neighbors, and elderly couple who offered to share their home if she would help work their farm after the baby came," Mama explained to me. "When the other Mohawk were sent away, Anne's mother gave her the cradleboard so she might continue the family history, and never forget who she was."

Above Anne's branch on the Tree of Life was another, longer branch, sprouting a seed pod. That was Mama's brother, Sam Light Foot, who inherited his ancestor's wandering spirit along with his name, and followed the Great Road out of Stockbridge for the sea. Beside his pod was carved another small flower for a new baby girl, as delicately wrought as the first blossom in spring. Molly.

"That was you, Mama!" I crowed.

"Yes, my Little Flower,"  Mama smiled. "That was me."

Above Mama's flower grew one more small branch. It bore another flower, more awkward than the others, but no less lovingly carved.

"I labored a night and a day to bring you into the world," Mama told me. "And your papa never left my side in all that time. When you were sleeping safe in my arms, he got out his knife and carved a flower for you."

My fingertips feel it still, the rough edges of my flower, a new song in the story of my ancestors. My place on the Tree of Life.

WHAT DO READERS WANT?

If you read (or write) historical fiction, check out the Historical Fiction Survey recently conducted over at  Mary Tod's A Writer of History blog.

Setting out last month to discover evolving tastes and trends among the historical fiction readership, she culled information from 805 respondents—readers and writers, female and male, foreign and domestic. And she's been busy compiling her findings ever since.

From general questions about favorite genres and historical periods, reading habits, and selling points ("strong female character" and "significant historical figure" trump military stories and capital-R Romance),  Tod has been branching out into specific topics like "Reasons not to read historical ficton," "Historical fiction would be better if..." and, "Stories that sell" (historical and otherwise).

Back in 2000, when I was laboring to midwife The Witch From the Sea into existence, I conducted my own highly unscientific Historical Fiction Survey via the pages of the pirate fanzine No Quarter Given. Then (unlike now) historical fiction was considered a hard sell in the publishing world, and I wanted to know if anybody was still reading it, and why. (Read more)

MY CRADLEBOARD

The stories my mother told about her ancestors were not recorded in words. They were carved in pictures into the smooth, wear-polished surface of an old basswood cradleboard. I don't remember riding in it on my Mama's back when I was little, but I do remember how it fascinated me, as I was growing up.

It was narrow at the bottom and rounded at the top, with one plain side to keep a baby snug against her mother's back, criss-crossed with colorful beaded straps. But the carved back side, facing out to the world, was alive with the work of a dozen patient hands.

The carved head of an eagle kept watch in the rounded top of the board. Mama said he stood for the power of the spirit world and respect for the unknown. Etched into the narrow base of the board was a simple, cross-hatched partridge feather that Mama said was a symbol of the Mohawk Nation.

Above this were the clan symbols, two delicate little turtles, each with a tiny head, tail, and four feet, radiating out from its round shell in all directions, like little twin suns.

"Your ancestor married a woman from the Turtle Clan," Mama told me. "And every daughter of every daughter all through time will also be of the Turtle Clan. When his wife bore their first child, your ancestor carved this cradleboard for her."

Planted between the two turtles, the sinuous trunk of of the Tree of Life snaked up the back of the board. Little branches jutted out from both sides of the trunk at uneven intervals; each one bore either a seed pod, for a son, or a delicately wrought flower, for a daughter. Each branch had been carved by a different father's hand as the cradleboard was passed down from mothers to daughters through the generations.

Long after I grew too big to ride in it, I loved to study the cradleboard. Mama said it would be mine some day. I loved to touch the tiny, magical carvings, so worn away with time, that had been shaped by so many loving hands.

"Listen to the wood," Mama would tell me, drawing my small fingertips gently over the smooth, intricate carvings. "Your ancestors will sing to you."

RUNAWAYS

The adventures of Tory Lightfoot continue beyond the events in The Witch From the Sea.

The second book in the series, Runaways: A Tale of Jonkanoo, finds Tory in the Caribbean Islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and Antigua during the volatile final years of slavery, trying to escape her notorious past in a troupe of humble buskers, tumbling on street corners. But as tensions mount between the slaves, the free people of color, and the authorities, Tory realizes the greatest jeopardy to her precious freedom may be the color of her skin.


From rollicking holiday slave parades to the grand elegance of "the season" at the luxurious Bath Hotel, Runaways is both love story and a suspense thriller told with a dash of Dickensian humor.

As a big thank-you to loyal readers of The Witch, a special, illustrated serial version of Runaways is available online right now!

(Sorry, it's not on the Kindle, but any device with an Internet connection should do the trick.) Please drop in and let me know what you think. It's free!

What's "Jonkanoo?" An annual holiday parade performed by slaves in the West Indian sugar islands in the 19th Century. For a few days, slaves were allowed to pretend they were free, going about masked and disguised, poking fun at their masters—until the rules of proper "civilized" behavior were clamped down again for another year.

Enjoy the adventure!

(Harlequin Pendu, frontispiece to Runaways: A Tale of Jonkanoo. Image © Lisa Jensen, 2012.)

(Jonkanoo, Jamaica, 1838. Belisario 08, as shown on www.slaveryimages.org, sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Virginia Library)

STORIES

From Tory's Log ~

Papa read us wonderful stories out of books almost every evening, after the work of the farm was done for the day. Mama worked at her mending, but my brothers and I sat spellbound.

Papa read about the adventures of King Arthur and the dream of Camelot. He read from the books of Mr. Smollett (a Scot, Papa pointed out), whose heroes were forever being whisked away on sailing ships or journeying through the Highlands.

The stories of Shakespeare were more difficult, with their strange, dreamlike language, but Papa invented a different voice for every character. He made us laugh at the man with the donkey's head let loose among the fairies, and we shivered when King Macbeth (another Scot) met the witches in the wood.

When I was old enough, Papa let me join the lessons he gave the boys at home in the busy harvesting season when the farm could not spare them for the village school. I'm afraid I was something of a disappointment in sums and grammar. But when I discovered reading, it was like learning to fly; Papa could not make up lessons fast enough to suit me. Now I knew magic, and no mortal power could keep me earthbound!

Mama told magical stories too, about the Old Ones, or Turtle, who carried all the world on his back, or Sky Woman, who gave birth to Creator, who made all the creatures of the earth. Even now, even here, so far away in time and place, I can hear the soft rhythms of my mother's voice, telling her stories in exactly the same words, so they sounded like a song.

That was all so long ago, but she is singing still in my heart.

ART of the WITCH

Once upon a time, pirate stories were considered strictly kid stuff, or else the province of capital-R Romance novels with brawny, half-naked rogues fondling their flintlocks splashed across the covers.

I was going for something more radical, a grown-up historical adventure novel with pirates, told from a woman's perspective.

This was my original concept sketch for The Witch cover art. Pretty atmospheric, no? The full moon, the pirate vessel, a woman, um, evidently rising up out of the middle of the ocean like Esther Williams in one of those gigantic MGM aquatic musical numbers.

Well, think of it as metaphor, just as the pirates in my book function as a metaphor for the freedom Tory craves.

I'm a little superstitious about rendering my character's faces; I don't want to interfere with the reader's imagination. But when I published a chapter out of The Witch as a short story in the pirate fanzine No Quarter Given, I drew this illustration to go with it.

 (Hmmm... I wonder if it's too late to re-do The Witch as a graphic novel...) (Read more)