Besides, They Are Unacquainted With Those Severe Pains
Which Follow The Birth In Our European Women.
Their Remedies
are a great Cause of this Easiness in that State; for the Indian Women
will run up
And down the Plantation, the same day, very briskly,
and without any sign of Pain or Sickness; yet they look very meager and thin.
Not but that we must allow a great deal owing to the Climate,
and the natural Constitution of these Women, whose Course of Nature
never visits them in such Quantities, as the European Women have.
And tho' they never want Plenty of Milk, yet I never saw an Indian Woman
with very large Breasts; neither does the youngest Wife ever fail of proving
so good a Nurse, as to bring her Child up free from the Rickets and Disasters
that proceed from the Teeth, with many other Distempers
which attack our Infants in England, and other Parts of Europe.
{Nurse Children how.} They let their Children suck till they are well grown,
unless they prove big with Child sooner. They always nurse
their own Children themselves, unless Sickness or Death prevents.
I once saw a Nurse hired to give Suck to an Indian Woman's Child,
which you have in my Journal. After Delivery, they absent
the Company of a Man for forty days. As soon as the Child is born,
they wash it in cold Water at the next Stream, and then bedawb it,
as I have mention'd before. {Cradle.} After which, the Husband takes care
to provide a Cradle, which is soon made, consisting of a Piece of flat Wood,
which they hew with their Hatchets to the Likeness of a Board; it is about
two Foot long, and a Foot broad; to this they brace and tie the Child down
very close, having, near the middle, a Stick fasten'd about two Inches
from the Board, which is for the Child's Breech to rest on,
under which they put a Wad of Moss, that receives the Child's Excrements,
by which means they can shift the Moss, and keep all clean and sweet.
Some Nations have very flat Heads, as you have heard in my Journal,
which is made whilst tied on this Cradle, as that Relation informs you.
These Cradles are apt to make the Body flat; yet they are
the most portable things that can be invented; for there is a String
which goes from one Corner of the Board to the other,
whereby the Mother flings her Child on her Back; so the Infant's Back
is towards hers, and its Face looks up towards the Sky. If it rains,
she throws her Leather or Woollen Match-coat, over her Head,
which covers the Child all over, and secures her and it
from the Injuries of rainy Weather. The Savage Women quit all Company,
and dress not their own Victuals, during their Purgations.
After they have had several Children, they grow strangely out of Shape
in their Bodies; As for Barrenness, I never knew any of their Women,
that have not Children when marry'd.
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