XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 19:54:02 +0100, Aidan Kehoe wrote:   
      
   > Cradle boards and other child carriers used by Native Americans are   
   > known by various names. In Algonquin history, the term papoose is   
   > sometimes used to refer to a child carrier.”   
   >   
   > Given I am 43 and fairly well-read I can assert that it has basically no   
   > currency outside the US. Does it have much currency within the US?   
      
   I knew it as a child in South Africa, certainly before the age of ten,   
   and I also knew it to be of North American origin. In my understanding it   
   referred to a young child being carried on its mother's back tightly   
   bundled.   
      
   Such a sight was familiar to me growing up, as black women in South   
   Africa often carried young children on their backs in that way, usually   
   tied up in blankets.   
      
   In Namibia the Herero people used a square of untanned goatskin, with   
   strips of skin attached to each corner, for that purpose. It was called   
   "otjivereko", and we were given one as a gift when our eldest child was   
   born. Back then, in the 1970s, white people often carried children in   
   that way too, sometimes on the back, and sometimes in front, and one   
   could buy a kind of canvas otjivereko in many shops selling baby goods.   
      
   So in my understanding a "papoose" was a North American otjivereko, which   
   differed from the southern African version in incorporating a stiff board.   
      
      
      
      
      
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