papoose

plural papooses

1. USdatedoffensiveA Native American baby.

   They say he has Indian blood in him. They say he has an Indian wife somewhere, and a lot of papooses. Cherokee.

   1930, Edna Ferber, Cimarron, page 11

   2 more examples

   […] a half-breed what they nicknamed "Splinters" 'cos of the way he fixed up her papoose which he stole on a raid […]

   1893, Bram Stoker, The Squaw

   In the empty Houston streets of four o’clock in the morning a motorcycle kid suddenly roared through, all bespangled and bedecked with glittering buttons, visor, slick black jacket, a Texas poet of the night, girl gripped on his back like a papoose, […]

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 8, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 2

2. UKA backpack for carrying a baby, or specifically a cradleboard.