54 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, I33 



TEASING, QUARRELING, USING "bAD WORDS," TEMPER TANTRUMS 



Teasing is a chief amusement of children : boys tease boys, girls 

 tease girls, sisters tease sisters, and brothers tease brothers. Teasing 

 is done about the ruka and during play hours at school. In a ruka, a 

 13-year-old girl teased her ii -year-old sister by pretending to strangle 

 the sister's pullet. The younger sister objected and told her to drop 

 the chicken. The mother finally gave the older girl a look, and the 

 girl released the chicken. During noon recess several little girls ran 

 back and forth past a group of older girls squatted in the shade of 

 trees and at every passing each little girl pulled the hair of an older 

 girl. Each older girl snatched at the hand of the little girl, and when 

 successful slapped it. 



Teasing not infrequently leads to quarreling, accompanied by hitting 

 back and forth, sometimes with angry words. School boys said their 

 quarrels usually began during games, such as playing ball or spinning 

 tops. "We begin peacefully, but sometimes disagree and end up in 

 a quarrel, sometimes in a fist fight. Then, if one of us is cornered so 

 that he no longer has his freedom, his anger becomes fierce." A 

 young boy was angered by three older boys and a fight resulted. He 

 fought back with his fists for a while; then stood with his back 

 against the school wall calling to the one who would not stop molesting 

 him, "You are an ox!" The attacker took it with a grin, as though 

 he still had the upper hand. One morning at school rollcall, three boys, 

 aged 7 to 9, two of them brothers, were absent. Children in attendance 

 were certain that the two brothers were giving the third boy a "lick- 

 ing" for having used their father's nickname when speaking of him, 

 as the brothers had warned the boy three days previously that they 

 were going to do so. The teacher also related that she had had repeated 

 reports that children of two families quarreled on their way to and 

 from school. When questioned, the children of one family said that 

 the relatives of the other family had invited their father to a machitun 

 merely to send sickness through him to one of their sisters. (There 

 is a belief that all sickness comes through poisoning in some unknown 

 or mysterious way; cf. p. no.) Another teacher told of two girls — 

 one a cousin that had been adopted by the family of the other — who 

 got into a quarrel at home and in consequence would not walk to or 

 from school together on the two following days. 



Schoolgirls gave as the chief reason for quarrels among themselves 

 being called "bad words" ; none would write or speak the bad words. 

 Their teacher noted that possibly it was an expression in Spanish, 

 "concho de tu madre" (shellfish of your mother), one that is greatly 



