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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 10 



he is threatened with disease and abandonment 

 if he partakes of forbidden foods to which he may 

 be exposed while his parents are not around. The 

 list of foods taboo to him, however, is not long. 

 Among the animals he must never eat is the harpy 

 eagle. This taboo is easy to obey, since tbis bird 

 is rarely bagged; only two were shot during my 

 residence at Tibaera. The harpy eagle is regarded 

 as the king of the birds by the Siriono, and the 

 eating of its flesh is believed to cause illness (it is 

 never stated what kind) to anyone but an old 

 person. Likewise taboo until one is aged are the 

 anteater, lest one sire or give birth to clubfooted 

 children, and the bowler monkey, because it is an 

 "old" animal with a beard and therefore dangerous 

 to eat when one is young. Children are also 

 forbidden the meat of the owl monkey, lest they 

 spend sleepless nights and be restless, and the 

 coati, lest they break out with sores on their 

 bodies. Embryos and the young offspring of 

 animals also cannot be eaten by children, lest they 

 have miscarriages in adulthood. 



There are few instances when the above-men- 

 tioned food taboos cause a child to suffer from 

 lack of meat. Sometimes, however, hunters return 

 with nothing but a howler monkey or an anteater, 

 and the child is denied a share. On such occasions 

 parents attempt by exchange to secure some edible 

 meat for the child, but in some instances he may 

 be forced to go meat hungry for a day or two. As 

 a last resort, parents sometimes neglect the food 

 taboos in order to satisfy a hungry and whimpering 

 child. I have observed a father offer his crying 

 son anteater meat, for instance, even though it 

 was strictly taboo for the child to eat it. Gener- 

 ally speaking, however, taboo foods are withheld 

 from children, who themselves learn what foods 

 not to eat by the time they have reached the age 

 of 6. 



When a child is able to walk and talk, his rela- 

 tions outside of the family begin to broaden. By 

 this time, of course, his education is w r ell underway. 

 Having traveled extensively through jungle and 

 swamp he has already become acquainted with 

 the plants and animals. He knows which ones 

 are good to eat and which ones must be avoided. 

 He has felt the prick of spines. He has experi- 

 enced the sting of mosquitoes, of scorpions, and of 

 ants. He has seen where animals live and how 

 they are shot. He has watched them being 

 cleaned, gutted, quartered, cooked, and eaten. 



He has gone hungry, and he has eaten to excess. 

 He has been sick with malaria, hookworm, and 

 dysentery. He has watched children be born 

 and die. He has seen the aged and sick abandon- 

 ed. He has observed his parents get drunk, 

 dance, and fight. He has heard of evil spirits, 

 and has been admonished not to venture out of 

 the house at night lest he be carried off by one. 

 In short, although only 3 or 4 years of age, he 

 has already experienced a major part of his 

 natural environment and participated deeply 

 into his culture. 



At about the age of 3, although still largely 

 dependent upon his parents, the child begins to 

 stray from the family fire — to play with other 

 children, and to learn those habits which gradu- 

 ally increase his self-reliance and lessen his de- 

 pendency on the family. His first contacts with 

 people of his own age are generally those with his 

 half brothers, half sisters, and his cousins, who 

 are not only closely related to him genealogically 

 but spatially as well, since the extended family 

 tends to cluster together in the house. A child's 

 first play group, in fact, seldom contains members 

 outside of his extended family. As he grows 

 older, children of the same sex and age from other 

 extended families join the play group, so that at 

 puberty there is usually not more than one play 

 group for each sex in the entire band. Since the 

 local group is small, play groups seldom contain 

 over five or six members. 



Since the aim to which every Siriono male aspires 

 is to be an excellent hunter, young boys get an 

 early education, through play, in the art of the 

 chase. Before a boy is 3 months of age his father 

 has made him a miniature bow and arrows which, 

 although he will not be able to use them for several 

 years, are symbolic of his adult role as a hunter. 

 By the time a boy is 3 years of age he is already 

 pulling on some kind of a bow, and with his com- 

 panions he spends many pleasant hours shooting 

 his weapons at any nonhuman target that strikes 

 his fancy. As he grows older and more skillful 

 with his bow, he begins to select living targets, 

 such as butterflies and insects, and when his 

 marksmanship is perfected he is encouraged to 

 stalk woodpeckers and other buds that light on 

 branches near the house. Consequently, by the 

 time a boy is 8 he has usually bagged some game 

 animal, although only a small bird. 



Like young boys, girls, too, through play, get 



