Brooklyn Museum Collection

This cradleboard is dark brown wood with metal tacks in a zigzag decoration across an area in the top. Rest of the cradle is missing. BArbara Hail Confirms it is Osage back cradle board.

This is a classic style of Northern Arapaho cradle except instead of hide it was made of muslin. The quilled disc is a design element that is symbolic for protecting the brain of the baby and is made with sacred colors of red, yellow and black. The lacings represent the baby's ribs, arms, and legs. There are ladder like bands of quillwork that frame the child's face flopping over like braids. The cradle is fashioned over a bent willow hoop. The Arapaho had a Sacred Guild of Quill workers. After initiation quill workers were allowed to make a type of holy embroidery with symbolic designs. Work was restricted to a few objects and four specific colors representing four directions. The cradle is like a tipi as it houses the baby like a tipi houses the family and tribe so both men and women are represented. The disc is a traditional Arapaho design done a lot by the Women's Society of Quill workers. The Shoshone/Arapaho started making these types again in the 1970s and they might still be making them. Possibly matches with cradle strap 05.568.

Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/261 , retrieved 1-28-2020: A toolkit used for making arrows. It consists of a cutting board made from wood with two skin pouches and a small knife attached to it with sinew thongs. The knife has an iron blade and a wood handle. The handle of the knife is wrapped with a hide thong, securing the blade and providing a grip for holding the knife. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/5: Toolkits, consisting of a small cutting board and knife for splitting and trimming feathers and small pouches containing red ochre and wax or spruce gum that the ochre was mixed with, were used for making and repairing arrows. Hunting implements often were stained with red ochre in the belief that it gave them added power.

Object itself is marked: "Toolboard, Awl and Wax."Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/126 , retrieved 1-28-2020: A toolkit used for making arrows. It consists of a wood cutting board with a small skin pouch and a bone or antler implement used for setting feathers attached to it with sinew thongs. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/5: Toolkits, consisting of a small cutting board and knife for splitting and trimming feathers and small pouches containing red ochre and wax or spruce gum that the ochre was mixed with, were used for making and repairing arrows. Hunting implements often were stained with red ochre in the belief that it gave them added power.

Records in the SI Archives of the Office of Distribution for the year 1867, say this tool board was exchanged (no recipient listed) but apparently either this is incorrect or it was later returned to the Museum.Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/107 , retrieved 1-3-2020: A toolkit used for making arrows. It consists of a cutting board made from wood with two small pouches attached to it with strips of hide. One pouch contains red ochre and the other contains wax or spruce gum. A small knife with an iron blade and wood handle has a broken hide thong at one end, and likely had also been attached to the cutting board. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/5: Toolkits, consisting of a small cutting board and knife for splitting and trimming feathers and small pouches containing red ochre and wax or spruce gum that the ochre was mixed with, were used for making and repairing arrows. Hunting implements often were stained with red ochre in the belief that it gave them added power.

WOODEN BOARD.

PLANK WITH 3 LARGE IRON NAILS FROM HOUSE OR LARGE BOX.

This object is identified in Anthropology catalogue ledger book as a "Chilkat blanket pattern board." The word Chilkat was mistranscribed on catalogue card as Clilkat. See related objects E209964 and ET15491. See Fig. 404, p. 187, in The Chilkat Dancing Blanket, by Cheryl Samuel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1982. Pattern board at top appears to be this object.Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=289 , retrieved 3-12-2012: Pattern board, Tlingit.Shgen George, a weaver, made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. The design on this pattern board is a diving whale.