Bibby, Brian
2004 Precious Cargo: California Indian Cradle Baskets and Childbirth Traditions. Berkeley, California: : Heyday Books.
Notes: With an essay by Craig D. Bates. Marin Museum of the American Indian. x, 146 p.: ill. (some col.), maps; 25 cm. ISBN: 1890771813Reviewed 18 Mar 2005 by:
Raymond A. Bucko <bucko@creighton.edu>
Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, USAMedium: Written Literature Subject
Keywords:Indian baskets - California - Exhibitions
Cradleboards - California - Exhibitions
Marin Museum of the American Indian - Exhibitions
ABSTRACT: A lavishly illustrated museum catalogue produced in conjunction with a traveling exhibit representing a wide variety of Native Californian cultures, Precious Cargo describes historic and contemporary cradle baskets in archaeological, ethnographic, and historical perspective.
Precious Cargo is a lavishly illustrated museum catalogue produced in conjunction with a traveling exhibit of cradle baskets from a wide variety of Native Californian cultures. Cradle baskets are baby carriers, many of which are formed from basket work rather than boards or bark as found in other parts of Native North America. The catalogue carefully contexualizes color photographs of each exhibit piece within tribal and familial traditions using both historical photographs of the cradles occupied by children as well as pictures of other cultural objects and practices associated with childbirth and early nurturance, and color photographs of the actual exhibit pieces. The collection highlights both historic cradles as well as contemporary cradle baskets by thirty weavers whose work was commissioned by the Marin Museum of the American Indian specifically for this exhibition.The catalogue is in three parts. The first part, a comprehensive introduction to the exhibit, highlights the importance of cradle baskets not only for their function in child care and their status as icons of Native identities in California. The cradles are also central to child rearing; the catalogue explains that while marking gender and tribal identity, cradles also represent a distinctive form of child care and child socialization. Cradles are also central to elaborate gift giving rituals as the ultimate symbols of familial and cultural pride. In the face of widespread deculturation and at times genocidal activity in California, the persistence and (in some cases) revival of cradle basket traditions testifies to cultural resilience and the continuing identity of Native Californian peoples.
In addition to the techniques of cradle basket construction, the work examines cultural practices revolving around conception, birth, and childrearing including sacrifices, observations of taboos, and religious prayers to ensure protection of the child, drawing on ethnographic writings and narratives by contemporary Native peoples on these topics. The prose is lively and engaging with a plethora of historic and contemporary photographs of cradle baskets in use, with associated artifacts, to help the reader understand that the empty and seemingly lifeless objects in the actual museum photographs were meant ultimately not for dissociated display, but to contain the cultureÆs most precious element, its future generation.
The second part of the catalogue divides the museum exhibit into three sections based on cradle basket style and geographic / tribal distribution. Sitting cradles, found in Northern California, are designed so that the baby sits up as one would in a chair rather than lying flat on its bask in the cradle. Rectangular lie-in cradles with protective hoods are found in central, western, and northwest Californian. The child is laid flat in the cradle held vertically on the motherÆs back with a carrying strap or tumpline. The hood, intricately woven with patterns and decorations, protects the baby from both falls and bright sun. Ladder back cradles have a distinctive frame construction and are found in a wide geographic region encompassing southern and central California. The catalogue further divides each cradle type according to cultural group and region, and provides maps for identifying the geographic range and cultural provenance of each type of cradle.
The workÆs greatest strength is its extended narrative that accompanies the images of each cradle in the exhibit. The focus of these descriptions is on contemporary use, Native interpretations, and historical interpretation that situate the traditions of cradle making and use by family as well as cultural group. Ethnographic writing amplifies these narratives and contextualizes them historically and culturally. Brian BibbyÆs long years of familiarity with the Native peoples of California and their willingness to share their cultural and artistic traditions make this exhibit catalogue as much a family album as an ethnographic analysis or a simple craft or art exhibit.
The third and final third part of the catalogue features an extended ethnographic essay on cradle baskets in central California, which traces archaeological origins, the historic continuity of form and manufacture, and the technological, economic, and material adaptations made in response to European contact. This detailed essay stresses continuity and change, similarities in style as well as group distinctiveness, the loss of some traditions and the recovery of others. This section too is lavishly illustrated with photographs.
My only criticism concerns the photographic layout in the book. The pictures of the cradle baskets are disappointingly small, compared to the large format pages on which they appear, and despite quite a few pages with large blank areas. The book itself is 8.5 inches wide and 9 long and yet each image is generally 4 inches wide and 6 inches long. One could have wished that more space, and perhaps more than one photographic view of some of the particularly distinctive cradle baskets, had been devoted to the basket cradles themselves. Nevertheless the photos in the work are clear and well lighted and of sufficient size for viewing details. This printed catalogue successfully balances historic usage with cotemporary importance of cradle baskets not only as cultural markers or efficient technologies or artistic display but ultimately, as the title proclaims, receptacles for precious cargo, the hope of all cultures, children.
This catalogue is particularly useful in the classroom not only because of the beauty of the cradle baskets themselves but because the narratives carefully integrate these items of material culture with symbolism, child rearing customs, personal history and identity, all important ways of interpreting what otherwise seem like lifeless objects. This book is suitable for students and professionals interested in Native studies, aesthetics, history, wearing and child rearing practices. Exhibits such as this are also to be applauded as it was created by a small museum with a staff of only two. The exhibit was created at the Marin Museum of the American Museum and tours California during 2005 and 2006 coordinated by the California Exhibition Resource Alliance.
Related Websites:
Marin Museum of the American Museum http://www.marinindian.com/
California Exhibition Resource Alliance http://www.ceraexhibits.org/
To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:
Bucko, Raymond A.
2005 Review of Precious Cargo: California Indian Cradle Baskets and Childbirth Traditions. Anthropology Review Database. March 18. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=2440, accessed February 9, 2010.© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)