In this bronze a Gros Ventre woman holds up a cradleboard and adjusts the coverings around her infant. Cradles were made of animal hide stretched over a board frame, with a fur-lined pocket with rawhide-reinforced sides attached to it to hold the infant. The faint design visible on the upper part of the board is consistent with a large, stylized decoration motif apparently derived from eastern Canadian sources that the Gros Ventres were known to have used. Russell’s Indian Family subjects seem to reflect the Gros Ventres’ all-important ambitions: males sought prestige and influence in their society through successful hunting and great fortitude in battle, while females developed a spiritual relationship with the forces of what they called “The Great Mystery Above”—the basis for the tribe’s health and happiness. The museum’s cast of the Indian female was produced by the California Art Bronze Foundry some twelve to fifteen years after the male figure of the pair. For the most part, the details on this cast are less distinct than can be observed on an earlier version cast by the Zoppo foundry. For example, the woman’s arms, particularly the left one holding the upper part of the cradle board, have lost much of their anatomical modeling, and the bracelet on her right wrist, clearly delineated with incised lines in earlier casts, has become indistinct and fused into her arm in this example. In her later years, Nancy Russell was not as attentive to the quality of production of her husband’s bronzes, as this particular cast demonstrates.