NOMADS OF THE LONG BOW HOLMBERG 



77 



CHILDHOOD 



The transition from infancy to childhood in 

 Siriono society is a very gradual one. Not only 

 are there no sharp breaks in the process of growing 

 up, but from the time one is a child until one 

 assumes the role of an adult, life is relatively care- 

 free and undisciplined. In fact, this pattern of 

 freedom so carries on throughout adult life that 

 it can be truly said of the Siriono that they are a 

 highly undisciplined people. 



In contrast to many primitive societies, where 

 a maternal or paternal relative often assumes the 

 responsibility of formally educating the child, 

 the system of education among the Siriono may 

 best be characterized as informal, random, and 

 haphazard. If there is a general theory of educa- 

 tion, it can hardly be more than the necessary 

 one of gradually teaching the child to be as inde- 

 pendent as possible of his family, so that by the 

 tune he has reached the age of maturity he will 

 be able to shift for himself. Since the amount of 

 knowledge that a child has to absorb to survive 

 in this culturally backward society is small in 

 comparison with what he would have to learn in 

 many other societies, the period of childhood offers 

 more than ample time to instill the patterns of 

 adult behavior without a great deal of formal 

 education. 



Until a child can walk or talk, at about the age 

 of 3, he is taught almost everything he knows by 

 his parents and his older siblings, and during the 

 early phases of the education of the child, of 

 course, it is the mother who plays the predominant 

 role. Not only does she feed and care for the 

 child, but she is largely responsible, since the 

 father is way a great deal on the hunt, for teaching 

 him to walk, to talk, and to observe the rules of 

 cleanliness. Young children are, therefore, usually 

 "mothers' boys" or "mothers' girls." 



In instilling the habits of prescribed behavior 

 in a child, the principles of reward and punishment 

 are clearly recognized. A mother who is teaching 

 her child to walk, for instance, frequently rewards 

 him, after he has reached his destination, with a 

 bit of wild bee honey or some other tidbit. But 

 if he is violating some taboo, such as eating dirt 

 or a forbidden animal, not only are the rewards 

 withdrawn, but the child may be roughly picked 

 up and set aside to cry by himself for a while. 

 A disobedient child may also be warned that if 



he repeats a forbidden act he will be bitten by a 

 snake or carried off by an evil spirit. An unruly 

 child is never beaten, however. At worst, his 

 mother gives him a rough pull or throws some 

 small object at him. 



During all of my residence among the Siriono, I 

 observed only one extreme outburst of aggression 

 on the part of a mother against her child. This 

 took place one evening about dusk. Erakui, a 

 nickname meaning "Pointed-one," had just begun 

 to eat a chunk of broiled peccary meat which she 

 had received from one of her relatives. Her 

 young son, Erami ("Old-buck" — so-called be- 

 cause he looked like an old man), although he had 

 just eaten, began to complain that he had not had 

 enough to eat. Erakui paid little attention to 

 him at first, but as he continued to complain, she 

 made a few sharp remarks and finally said to him: 

 "You have already had enough to eat." He 

 replied: "You lie," and made a gesture of grabbing 

 for the meat that she was eating. Suddenly she 

 lost her temper, picked up a spindle lying nearby, 

 and gave the boy a sharp rap on the shoulders. 

 He began to howl and made a dash for the other 

 end of the house to avoid more blows. She 

 followed him a short distance, threw the spindle at 

 him, and then returned to her hammock, where 

 she, too, began to cry. (Mothers almost always 

 cry after they have expressed aggression against 

 their children.) The boy continued to wail at the 

 other end of the house for about 20 minutes after 

 which, since it was getting very dark, be sneaked 

 back and climbed in a hammock with his father. 

 In the morning all had been forgotten. 



Children are generally allowed great license in 

 expressing aggression against their parents, who 

 are both patient and long-suffering with them. 

 A young child in a temper tantrum may ordinarily 

 beat his father and his mother as hard as he can, 

 and they will just laugh. When children are 

 neglected or teased by their parents, they often 

 pick up a spindle or stick and strike them with 

 considerable force without being punished. 1 

 have even heard fathers encouraging their young 

 sons to strike their mothers. Eantandu told me 

 that such expressions of anger in a child were a 

 sign that he would grow up to be a valiant adult. 



Food habits are among the first patterns of be- 

 havior that every young child must learn. After 

 weaning, taboo foods are simply withheld from a 

 child, but as he grows older and more omnivorous, 



