The Osage Nation Museum hosted its first Generations of History lecture and focused on Osage cradleboards.
The ON Museum and its former museum director, E. Sean StandingBear, are collaborating on the nine-part lecture series. The event was held on March 15, and StandingBear shared what he has learned over his lifetime. Reflecting on childhood memories and exposing attendees to new information regarding Osage cradleboards.
StandingBear was often put on a cradleboard as a baby and brought the cradleboard he was put on as a child. He described it as one of his earliest memories.
“I spent most of my time on two kitchen chairs at a 45-degree angle,” he said. “My mom asked me, ‘What’s your youngest memory?’ And I said, ‘The torture of being on one of those cradleboards.’ And she’s like, ‘You can remember that?’ Yes, I can.”
While cradleboards were once a significant part of Osage culture, there are not many being made today. StandingBear said it’s because of the precision that is involved in making the bow of the cradleboard, which was used to protect the baby.
“One of the reasons why people don’t make baby boards anymore is because they don’t know how to make one of these,” he said. “It’s that bow. As you notice, it’s all the grain has to, it’s like a bow. It has to be at a 45-degree angle.”
Some cradleboards, like the one StandingBear was on as a child, had holes drilled into the back of the cradleboard for airflow.
“Another nice thing, and not all boards have them, but that one up there, there’s little air holes, little Romans, arches,” he said. “I could remember feeling that breeze on the back of my neck. I found pictures of me on the cradleboard. I didn’t break because I’m just crying.”
StandingBear remembers that the cradleboards weren’t comfortable, but they served their purpose.
“I just described it as torture,” he said. “But I was safe and they always knew where I was.”
Some cradleboards had bells and feathers attached to the bow of the cradleboard to keep the baby entertained.
“You can look at this picture closely, you can see on those bells,” StandingBear said. “There’s a little piece of red felt and it had paper on it and it was a sacred heart emblem. But on that board, they had a little bell on there and it had a little eagle plume, a little red plume on the body. One of the first things they taught me to do is to blow on that feather to get the bell to jingle.”
Most cradleboards have beadwork, ribbonwork, broadcloth, buckskin or finger-woven coverings of strands on them.
“I’ve seen some of these boards just with buckskin stitched all the way around it, and that was it,” StandingBear said. “So it’s functional and beautiful at the same time.”
One of the cradleboards had strawberries incorporated into the beadwork.
StandingBear presented important information about the designs on the cradleboards.
“A lot of these designs on here had to do with family ownership,” he said. “Much like arrows, the way you mark your arrows, constellations and clan affiliation.”
He said that cradleboards were not only important to Osages as a whole, but each family.
“Each design had significance to the clans and the families,” he said. “It was tied to ownership. Somebody can see in public, back in the day, they could look at the tops of those boards and tell whose family they belonged to.”
Osage motifs and split arrows are a common design on cradleboards.
“One popular design is a split arrow and it’s got like a diamond and a feather,” StandingBear said. “It’s feather fletching and then straight line in between. That’s the shaft of the arrow. And you remove the opposite one. You got to do a lot of gymnastics in your mind to really read ribbonwork. And those of you who’ve been around, Osage ribbonwork is distinct.”
The designs on the cradleboards were not limited to just the ties on the boards, but also designs on the board itself. Some of the red paint used in the designs was made with mercurial sulfide, a crystallized form of mercury.
“It’s a beautiful color, a shade of red and we had to have it,” StandingBear said. “And a lot of other clans I understood had to have it using that red paint. It was like they referred to it as the life-giving rays of sun. I believe that this old board over here, the background, but look right up onto the edge of the tack and you can see this really fine line but red, but it’s glowing.”
The importance of the cradleboard is more than just the cradleboard itself. It’s deeply rooted in Osage culture.
“There used to be a tradition in some families to introduce the child to the Earth,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that, but they used to get a favorite uncle or aunt. They take the moccasins off and they lower them [the babies] down, they touch the ground. It’s really funny to see them bouncing when they do that. And those babies don’t touch the ground for 30 days. I was told.”
StandingBear said the museum reached out to him to share his cultural knowledge with other Osages.
“This was all the museum’s plan,” he said. “I understand it was a team effort and they’d been wanting to do something like this, but I guess I couldn’t nail anybody’s feet down. They asked me if I would come and tell them what I knew. All I know is what I’ve been told.”
StandingBear has even made some cradleboards himself. It takes a couple of weeks for him to make one.
“I was always told your relatives come to you and ask you to do that,” he said. “It’s a big honor, but it’s also a big responsibility. You have to do it right. I’ve made three.”
Dakota Pratt attended the session and enjoyed it.
“It was good, it was informative,” she said. “I like how he gave his personal background as to his personal connection to Osage heritage, being in an Osage cradleboard, and then understanding that he basically grew up in this way of life.”
Kathryn Redcorn, also a former museum director, had a positive experience and offered some advice to the younger generation.
“I enjoyed it very much and I thought he covered everything really well,” she said. “I think that everyone needs to come. All the young people need to come and listen because so many of the traditions get lost, not in all families, but in some of the families. And then you can come and hear why something’s done a certain way.”
Current ON Museum Director Marla Redcorn-Miller explained the push to keep these traditions alive.
“One of the things that we’re highlighting is we’re looking at community-based forms of knowledge, Osage-based forms of knowledge and prioritizing that over the things that other people say about us,” she said. “I think that one of the things in terms of what we have done, what our other generations or earlier generations have done for us was really there are these things in the museum world that kind of goes as trends. There’s a trend of community engagement, there’s a trend, you hear this, that’s our narrative.”
StandingBear sees cradleboards becoming more common in the future, and wants to offer his knowledge.
“I can see in my mind a resurgence of the culture surrounding these cradleboards,” he said. “And I’m willing to do whatever I can to help young men and women learn how to do it to their satisfaction and to help them with designs.”
For questions about the series, please contact the Osage Nation Museum by email at julianna.cote@osagenation-nsn.gov or call (918) 287-5441.
Upcoming Lectures all at 1 p.m. on the 3rd Saturday of the Month
- April 19 – Osage Ribbonwork Blanket.
- May 17 – Osage Code Talker Medal.
- July 19 – Osage Roach Headdress.
- Aug. 16 – Osage Foodways/Wooden mortar and pestle.
- Sept. 20 – Drum Creek Treaty Pen.
- Oct. 18 – Portrait of Bacon Rind by Franklin Brave.
- Nov. 15 – Black Dog’s War Shield.
- Dec. 20 – Nohozhinga Clan Headdress.
