Hand-tinted stereograph, T. W. Ingersoll, 1898, 8.9 x 17.8 cm. 

Two Native American Indian women and a child sitting on blankets or mats inside reed dwelling.  Women are wearing loose-fitting, long-sleeved cotton shirts and long skirts, and child is wearing loose-fitting cotton dress.  All three have on long necklaces. 

On front: “486.  Blackfoot Squaw’s Papoose at Home.  Copyrighted, 1898, by T. W. Ingersoll.” 

On back: “The summer home of the Blackfoot Indian is the rush lodge or wickiup, of which this is the interior.  The home life of a papoose is as free from responsibility and care among the Indians as it is among whites, possibly more so.  In fact the mother pays little or no attention to the child after it is able to walk, except to see that it does not fall into the water, or fire, and that it is at home by bed time.  In the winter the rush lodge is abandoned in favor of the double skin covered teepee and the spaces between the two layers of skin are packed with moss or dried grass.  It is astonishing how comfortable a teepee can be made, even in the coldest weather.  For an ordinary sized family, the structure will be sixteen feet across at the bottom and there will be an opening four feet in diameter at the apex.  A little fire built in the center of the tepee warms the interior beautifully and serves both for the purpose of cooking and heating.  No stove pipe is necessary as the natural draft carries the smoke upward and out of the opening.  These dwellings are not smoky at any time and they are far preferable to any other form of tent which has yet been devised for cold weather use.  A8835”