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Cradled Infant Figurines from Tennessee and Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Noel Morss*
Affiliation:
Needham, Massachusetts

Extract

A remarkable resemblance exists between a pottery figurine from Tennessee, representing an infant strapped to a cradle board, and two figurines from Mexico.

Figure 74 is taken from Thruston's “Antiquities of Tennessee.” He says of it:

Among the archaeological treasures found in the stone graves of the Noel cemetery, recently discovered near Nashville, was the unique little image, in clay, of a child or papoose strapped to its cradle-board, photo-engraved in Plate IV and also illustrated in Fig. 31.

It was found in a child's grave by Mr. George T. Halley of Nashville, an intelligent young explorer and collector, from whom we obtained it. The [line] illustrations are correct in their details, but slightly magnify its rudeness, as will be observed by turning to the more exact photo-engraving. It is nine inches long and four inches wide, and was doubtless placed by the hands of some weeping Indian mother in her child's grave, as a memorial tribute, or as a toy or doll of which the child was fond (Thruston, 1890, P. 113).

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1952

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