206 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 184 
up” foods. ‘Indian mothers are proud of having their offspring take 
solid food at an early age,” says Aberle (1932, p. 341); ‘‘children are 
encouraged to partake of food that has been prepared for the adults, 
consisting largely of beans, chili, and tortilla.”” They were occasion- 
ally fed large fat worms found within cornhusks “to prevent stomach 
aches from over indulgence in corn. Fried ants were rubbed on the 
legs to make them strong and straight” (ibid.). Since the 1930’s, 
however, the Government doctors and nurses have done much to 
improve the methods of child care at Sia. 
Children play a great deal, boys and girls often playing together. 
They seem never to fight, although one will occasionally cry, as if in 
frustration. 
One thing that I can point to, but cannot delineate in any detail, 
is, without question, a tremendously important factor in shaping the 
personality of the growing child. This is the fact that every child 
frequents many households daily and has intimate association with 
many individuals outside his own family or household. Every child 
has several mothers and fathers and has daily contact with them. His 
own parents may well come first in his life, but they are far from being 
set apart and above other people. Moreover, he has close and daily 
association with the children of many households, in his own house, 
in their houses, and in the village streets. Every day and every 
hour prepares the child to live in a small, compact, and close-knit 
community. 
Another fact of unquestioned significance is the almost complete 
lack of privacy in personal, family life in the pueblo. The secret 
societies can retire to their ceremonial chambers and shut out the rest 
of the world—some of them have guards or doorkeepers to insure 
seclusion and privacy—but the family cannot. Some families now 
lock their houses when they leave them to go to some other part of 
the pueblo, but this is a safeguard against outsiders who may enter 
and wander through the pueblo rather than against the citizens of Sia. 
But when a family is in its house any relative, and probably any 
member of the pueblo, may enter. Probably no one would or could 
refuse to admit any member of the village who presented himself at 
the door. It is not considered bad manners for one to look through 
windows to see who is in a room; and to draw blinds to prevent this 
would almost certainly lay one open to a suspicion of wrongdoing— 
if not worse. In many instances several, if not all, members of the 
household sleep in the same room. There were a number of people, 
children as well as adults, in the room in which the birth observed by 
Mrs. Stevenson took place. It is impossible, therefore, for a child to 
grow up in Sia without acquiring a great amount of information on 
many aspects of life. 
