266 



CHILD LIFE 



[b. a. e. 



ceremony. With some tribes, as the 

 Omaha, the hair is cut in a pattern to 

 indicate the gens or band of the parent, 

 and in some, as the Kiowa, to indicate 

 the particular protecting medicine of the 

 father. 



Twins are usually regarded as uncanny, 

 and are rather feared, as possessing oc- 

 cult power. With some Oregon and 

 other coast tribes they were formerly re- 

 garded as abnormal and one or both were 

 killed. There are well-authenticated in- 

 stances of deformed children being put 

 to death at birth. On the other hand 

 children crippled by accident are treated 

 by parents and companions with the 

 greatest tenderness. 



Among tlie Plains tribes the ceremo- 

 nial boring of the ears for the insertion 

 of pendants is often made the occasion of 

 a more or less public celebration, while 

 the investment of the boy with the 

 breechcloth at the age of 9 or 10 years is 

 observed with a quiet family rejoicing. 

 The first tattooing and the first insertion 

 of the labret are also celebrated among 

 the tribes practising such customs. In 

 many or most tribes the boys passed 

 through an initiation ordeal at an early 

 age, sometimes, as with the Zufii, as young 

 as 5 years (see Ordeals). With the Hopi 

 and Zuni the child is lightly whipped with 

 yucca switches when initiated into the 

 Kachina priesthood. With the Powhatan 

 of Virginia, if we can believe the old chron- 

 iclers, the boys, who may have been about 

 10 years of age at the time, were actually 

 rendered unconscious, the declared pur- 

 pose being to take away the memory of 

 childish things so that they should wake 

 up as men (see Huskanaiv). On the 

 plains the boys at about the same age were 

 formally enrolled into the first degree of 

 the warrior society and put vmder regular 

 instruction for their later responsiljilities. 



Children of both sexes have toys and 

 games, the girls inclining to dolls and 

 "playing house," while the boys turn to 

 bows, riding, and marksmanship. Tops, 

 skates of rib-bones, darts, hummers, balls, 

 shinny, and hunt-the-button games are 

 all favorites, and wherever it is possible 

 nearly half the time in warm weather is 

 spent in the water. They are very fond 

 of pets, particularly puppies, which the 

 little girls frequently dress and carry 

 upon their backs like babies, in imita- 

 tion of their mothers. Among the Zuiii 

 and Hopi wooden figurines of the princi- 

 pal mythologic characters are distributed 

 as dolls to the children at ceremonial per- 

 formances, thus impressing the sacred 

 traditions in tangible form (see Amuse- 

 ments, Dolls, (rdvies). 



Girls are their mothers' companions 

 and are initiated at an early period into 

 all the arts of home life — sewing, cooking. 



weaving, and whatever else may pertain 

 to their later duties. The boys as natur- 

 ally pattern from their fathers in hunting, 

 riding, or boating. Boys and girls alike 

 are carefully instructed by their elders, 

 not only in household arts and hunting 

 methods, but also in the code of ethics, 

 the traditions, and the religious ideas 

 pertaining to the tribe. The special cere- 

 monial observances are in the keeping of 

 the various societies. The prevalent idea 

 that the Indian child grows up without 

 instruction is entirely wrong, although it 

 may be said that he grows up practically 

 without restraint, as instruction and 

 obedience are enforced by moral suasion 

 alone, physical punishment very rarely 

 going beyond a mere slap in a moment of 

 anger. As aggressiveness and the idea of 

 individual ownership are less strong with 

 the Indian than with his white brother, 

 so quarrels are less frequent among the 

 children, and fighting is almost unknown. 

 Everything is shared alike in the circle of 

 playmates. The Indian child has to learn 

 his language as other children learn theirs, 

 lisping his words and confusing the gram- 

 matic distinctions at first; but with the 

 precocity incident to a wild, free life, he 

 usually acquires correct expression at an 

 earlier age than the average white child. 



At about 15 yeat-s of age in the old days, 

 throughout the eastern and central re- 

 gion, the boy made solitary fast and vigil 

 to obtain communication with the medi- 

 cine spirit which was to be his protector 

 through life; then, after the initiatory 

 ordeal to which, in some tribes, he was 

 subjected, the youth was comi^etent to 

 take his place as a man among the war- 

 riors. For a year or more before his ad- 

 mission to full manhood responsibilities 

 the young man cultivated a degree of re- 

 serve amounting even to bashfulness in 

 the presence of strangers. At about the 

 same time, or perhaps a year or two ear- 

 lier, his sister's friends gathered to cele- 

 brate her puberty dance, and thenceforth 

 child life for both was at an end. 



Consult Chamberlain, Child and Child- 

 hood in Folk Thought, 1896; Dorsey in 

 3d Rep. B. A. E., 1884; Eastman, Indian 

 Boyhood (autobiographic), 1902; Fewkes 

 (1) in Am. Anthrop., iv, 1902, (2) in 21st 

 Rep. B. A. E., 1903; Fletcher in Jour. Am. 

 Folk-lore, 1888; Gatschet, Creek Migr. 

 Leg., I, 1884; Ea Flesche, The Middle 

 Five, 1901 (autobiographic); Mason in 

 Rep. Nat. Mus., 1887; Owens, Natal Cere- 

 monies of the Hopi, 1892; Powers in Cont. 

 N. A. Ethnol., iii, 1877; Spencer, Educa- 

 tion of the Pueblo Child, 1899; Stevenson 

 in 5th Rep. B. A. E., 1887; and especially 

 Jenks, Childhood of Jishib, the Ojibwa, 

 1900, a sympathetic sketch of the career 

 of an Indian boy from birth to manhood. 



(j. M.) 



