276 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 33 



said her mother sang a repetition of "sh" to several melodies. She 

 herself sang a Spanish lullaby to her children, one she had learned by 

 hearing her mother sing it : "Por una manzana, calle, calle guagua. 

 Alia vienen todos, guiadalos por el toro." (For an apple, hush, hush 

 little one. There they all come, led by a bull.) 



A mother was said to be letting her small child dance to her singing 

 if she moved it up and down in her arms or held its hands and let it 

 move its feet up and down on the ground while she sang to it. 



TEETHING, SMILING, CREEPING, WALKING, TALKING 



Nothing was done to develop early growth of teeth. "When it was 

 time for the first tooth to appear, it came; then another came; then 

 another, until all had come." No developmental significance was at- 

 tached to the appearance or the loss of the first tooth. 



Formerly, the mother washed the baby's gums, if inflamed, with a 

 decoction of bark of radal ; today, young mothers use vinegar. For- 

 merly, if a teething child ran a temperature, the mother rubbed its 

 gums with unwashed wool of black sheep ; today, young mothers use 

 alum bought in stores. 



Every tooth of both the first and second set, when it dropped out, 

 was buried somewhere in the toldo. Places pointed out were junctions 

 of wall and floor, fissures in walls, and places under rocks around the 

 fireplace. "Not many do that today. But it is a bad thing to throw 

 teeth away ; things may happen. In any event our teeth are a part 

 of us ; they should be buried in the ground, for when we die the rest 

 of us will be buried in the ground, also." Formerly, fingernail parings 

 and hair cuttings were also buried in the house. "After death the 

 person needs all these. If they are not all buried in the same place, 

 the person has to run around to find them." 



A baby's first smile is not celebrated, and never has been, but "it 

 makes the father and mother happy." The mother will fondle the 

 child lovingly for it, and tell others about it. 



Usually children were not permitted to creep, but occasionally a 

 mother might allow it, to give the child an opportunity to try out its 

 strength. If it did creep, it did so on hands and feet; or it slid along 

 on one hip. In general, when the child showed signs of wanting to 

 creep, the mother taught it to stand, and does so today. "When this 

 one [i year 3 months old] wanted to creep, I taught it to balance 

 itself by having it stand near me with arms straight down by its sides. 

 A child can be taught to stand alone at 10 months : it will rise and 

 fall, rise again and fall again, but finally it will learn to stand alone." 



