Drabble 11: Unwrapping the Gift
Victoria opened a cotton baby blanket made of fine, soft cloth. It had beautifully ornate weaving with lots of blue. It separated as it was unfolded, with a second blanket falling out below.
Mano caught that blanket, which had a reddish pattern.
"The chief didn't know if it is a boy or a girl, so he sent a blanket just-in-case for each, a blue and a pink. Lovely!"
She hugged the blankets close, babbling with her little one.
Buck whispered, "Mano, they do the blue-n-pink thing?"
"I have no idea," replied Mano, thinking it didn't look very pink to him.
~HC~
Author's Note: It's unclear whether the Apaches grew their own cotton at this time. The Apaches shown on TV generally wore clothes made of cotton or possibly agave fibers instead of skins worn by those of the plains. However, I can't find a specific reference to them growing cotton during this period since they were still semi-nomadic, so perhaps this was produced by the Pueblo or Navajo Indians who did, since the Apaches sometime traded with them. The finer cloth produced by the Indians of the American Southwest often had geometric patterns and the Apaches were known for their beadwork, though, from a modern perspective on safety, I'm not sure if they would have sewn beads on baby blankets.