The following excerpt from Pretty Shield, Medicine Woman of the Crows by Frank B. Linderman illuminates the joy and simplicity surrounding childbirth in the tribal tradition. Pretty Shield lived before and during the time the Native Americans were forced onto reservations. She died in 1944. The account of the birthing lodge follows...
...We Crow women had no trouble when our babies were born. I will tell you everything about it. I will do this by relating my own first experience. I have had five children, three girls and two boys...
I was expecting a baby, of course, but was not worrying about it. One day while playing with some girl friends, I felt a little quick pain, and sat down, laughing about it. One of my friends guessed what was about to happen and told my mother.
But when my mother, and a wise-one, named Left-hand, came after me I did not wish to go to the lodge with them. 'Yes,' my mother urged, 'come. We have pitched a new lodge for you daughter.'
Left-hand's lodge was pitched near my mother's. I noticed now that one of my father's best horses, with several fine robes on his back, was tied there. My father had already paid her for helping even before I needed help. Old Left-hand wore a buffalo robe with the hair-side out. Her face was painted with mud, her hair was tied in a big lump on her forehead, and in her hand she carried some of the-grass-that-the-buffalo-do-not-eat. Her eyes were so full of fun that I laughted at her as I might have laughed at a mud-clown. And yet she was serious, even solemn in all her actions.
Now I must tell you about the lodge they had pitched for me. Left-hand stopped me just inside the door. A fire was burning, and my mother had made my bed, a soft buffalo robe folded with the hair side out. This bed was not to lie down on. Crow women do not lie down when their babies are born, nor even afterward, excepting to sleep when night comes, as others do. Two stakes had been driven into the ground for me to take hold of, and robes had been rolled up and piled against them, so that when I knelt on the bed-robe and took hold of the two stakes, my elbows would rest upon the pile of rolled robes.
While I stood by the door, Left-hand took four live coals from the lodge-fire. One of these she placed on the ground at the door, then one to the left, halfway to the head of the lodge, one at the head, and one in front of the bed-robe, which was on the right side of the door, halfway between it and head of the lodge. Then she dropped a little of the-grass-that-the-buffalo-do-not-eat upon each of these coals, telling me to walk to the left, to go around to my bed, stepping over the coals.
Walk as though you are busy, she said, brushing my back with the tail of her buffalo robe, and grunting as a buffalo-cow grunts.
I had stepped over the second coal when I saw that I should have to run if I reached my bed-robe in time. I jumped the third coal, and the fourth, knealt down on the robe, took hold of the two stakes; and my first child, Pine-fire, was there with with us.
It was always like this, in the old days. There must be some reason for the change. I have wondered about it. Perhaps it is because women have grown proud. Yes, I believe that this must be the reason. She finished, as simply as she had begun.
I stood up when it was time and then old Left-hand wound a strip of tanned buffalo skin around my waist. After this she greased my baby with grease that had red paint mixed with it, dusting a little powdered buffalo-chips and finely pounded clay from the hips down to the knees. next she put a layer of the hair from a buffalo's head all around the child, and wrapped her in buckskin before laying her on a strip of stiff buffalo rawhide to keep her little head from falling backward. After this was all done Left-hand wrapped my baby in tanned calf-skin, and handed her to me. Her work was done, so that she could go about her own business.
Each night all this dressing was removed, the baby washed, and again greased, and then left to kick up its heels on a soft buffalo robe until the new wrappings were ready for it. At first we never washed new-born babies. A little later on when they could stand it without danger we washed them every night, the boys in cold water, and the girls in warm water, when we had it. Boy-babies are always tougher than girls.
When did you put babies into back-cradles?
When they were six moons old. Until that time we carried babies in our arms, even on horseback. After they were put into back-cradles they were much less trouble. But when they grew old enought to ride on top of packs and on travois, they began again to require watching At four snows of age a Crow child could take good care of itself, on foot, or on a gentle horse.
But you women did not work for a time after a baby was born to you, did you?
Oh, yes. But we took short steps when we walked and ate nothing and drank nothing that was warm for a whole moon. Besides this, when the village moved and we had to ride, we tied our legs together just above our knees, sitting on flat packs with our babies in our arms, and our feet sticking out in front of us-one foot on each side of the horse's neck. We had to be helped on and off a horse of course, with our legs tied together, but this did not last longer than one moon.
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