Babies in Trees

Yesterday, an Abenaki Native American woman visited Max's class. The topic came up at dinner tonight:

MAX: "I don't know how this happened, but a real Indian came to my class."

MOM: "What did she tell you about?"

MAX: "About how to pull another kid up on a horse."

MOM: "Did they do that for hunting?"

MAX: "No."

MOM: "What else did she tell you about?"

MAX: "You know those things that you carry a baby in? Well they didn't have those back then. They just put the baby on the horse...And sometimes they even put it in a tree."

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Oh, the things that stick in a Kindergartener's head...

We didn't get any further explanation about the baby in the tree. Mia and Will wondered if the Indians just left the baby there and came back for it later. Or if it fell out of the tree. Max didn't know. And he didn't seem concerned about it.

So Mia and I Googled “Indian babies in trees” and found a poem and a picture of a papoose hanging in a tree, and it all made a little more sense. What a cool way to spend an afternoon, hanging in a tree with the birds singing all around you.

Where this story really leads me isn't in the wonder of hanging in a tree but rather…thank goodness we have Google to clarify those all those things that are left hanging in the chronicles of a five year old.

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