THE ESKIMO CHILD HRDLICKA 561 



There are no social gatherings for the Eskimo children, no com- 

 munal functions; but they may, it seems, attend the "dances" and 

 singing arranged on occasions by the adults, and also, in summer, 

 any outdoor jollifications. 



Thus passes the earlier Eskimo childhood in the Far Northwest. 

 Many interesting local details might still be gathered on this period 

 and should be recorded before it is too late, for the Eskimo is very 

 adaptable and is rapidly changing to a modern way of living and 

 doing things. 



With the approach of adolescence the play period of the Eskimo 

 child is largely ended. The boy now is a substantial help to his 

 father, the girl to her mother. The age at which this period begins 

 among the Eskimo girls has within recent years been definitely estab- 

 lished in some regions. At Bethel, on the Kuskokwim River, west- 

 ern Alaska, the mean age for 16 full-blood girls was 13.3 years, for 

 6 mixbloods (Eskimo- White) 13.2 years, with the extremes in the 

 former 12 to 14^/2 years, in the latter 11 to 15 years.' This is much 

 the same as with the majority of healthy white girls (13 to 15 

 years). In the boys, as with ours, the period is generally a little 

 later. 



Formerly, there were among the Eskimo various observances 

 connected with tliis period, both for boys and girls, but these have 

 now been largely given up. One of the most curious of these prac- 

 tices, which doubtless served as one of the tests and marks of initia- 

 tion of the youngsters into manhood and womanhood, was the 

 knocking out of one or more of their front teeth.* This practice 

 was once widespread over the world, including America, and is still 

 in vogue among the Australians and some other primitive groups. 

 It seems now to be wholly forgotten in Alaska. 



During adolescence, many of the young men grow handsome, ac- 

 tive, and in cases rather reckless and boastful; the young women 

 often good looking and even very pretty, shy, modest, and in some 

 instances full of inborn naive coquetry, highly enjoyable to the 

 observer. Not a few of these girls now marry local white men, and 

 make them fair wives. The well-trained and educated girls brought 

 up by such establishments as the Moravian Orphanage on the Kus- 

 kokwim River are especially sought for, so that there are generally 

 a number of native grooms, with now and then a white, awaiting their 

 release. 



The outstanding sports for the Eskimo youth are wrestling and 

 tossing. Wrestling has always been in great repute among the 



•For details see the writer's "Puberty In Eslclmo Girls." Proc. Nat. Acad. Sd., vol. 

 22, pp. 355-357, 1936. 



* See the writer's "Ritnal Ablation of Front Teeth in Siberia and America," Smithsonian 

 Misc. Coll., vol. 99, No. 3, 1940, 



