WHOLE VOL. ARAUCANIAN CHILD LIFE — HILGER 'J'J 



children too, and you must rear them. If you will train your children 

 as I trained you, you will have no trouble with them.' The mother 

 tells her all this." 



Older boys and girls everywhere taught younger brothers and 

 sisters, either by letting them observe what they were doing and ex- 

 plaining the procedure to them, or by letting them help with the work 

 and directing them in it. 



INCENTIVES AND COMPULSIONS 



Before the child is able to comprehend, incentives and compulsions 

 used are very simple — indeed, they can hardly be called that. In 

 general, the attention of a small child that is beginning to comprehend 

 is distracted from conduct that is not conforming to accepted stand- 

 ards by saying "hstch" to it, once or several times. This is said in 

 subdued tones. Fathers and mothers and older brothers and sisters 

 were seen correcting small children in this manner. During an inter- 

 view a mother took into her lap a 2-year-old boy who did much fussing 

 and would not respond to her "hstches." When he continued being 

 restless, she passed him to her husband, where he was quiet for a 

 little while. When he began fussing again, she handed him to his 

 1 0-year-old sister, but slapped his legs before doing so. Other chil- 

 dren who were noisily playing close by were repeatedly subdued by a 

 "hstch" from her. Any child that is old enough to comprehend and 

 does not heed "hstches" is spoken to in subdued tones, but in a stern 

 voice; always in a disapproving manner. Not once did the writer 

 hear a child corrected in a loud voice. 



Old informants said that praise and rewards were seldom given in 

 their childhood days. "To give a girl recognition for what she was, 

 or did, was not our custom ; the very fact that a parent was satisfied 

 with her, and with what she did, was enough reward. If a boy's con- 

 duct was outstanding, he was rewarded by being sent to a cacique with 

 an important message or with words of comfort to a family in which 

 a death had occurred." 



Today, too, a child able to comprehend is expected to do the usual 

 things without praise or reward; extraordinary things or favors are 

 praised and, occasionally, rewarded. Alepue schoolchildren had been 

 praised or rewarded materially by fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, 

 and aunts (but not by sisters) for work well done. One of the boys had 

 been praised by his father for reminding him of several things which 

 he, the father, was forgetting to do while they were on a journey. 

 Other rewards received by boys were lo pesos for tending a horse ; 



