638 Notes on Northern Gachar. [No. 7. 



At between nine aud fifteen months of age, the child can walk by 

 itself and begins to speak. Both male and female children go stark 

 naked, until they are five or six years of age. The first instruction 

 that boys receive is to learn to throw stones with precision. Young- 

 sters of eighteen and twenty months are pitted against each other 

 at a few yards endeavouring with all their might to hit one another ' 

 as they grow older the relish for this amusement increases ; parti- 

 cular stones — round and smooth — acquire value in their eyes, and 

 these are lost and won among them according to their success 

 as marksmen. From stones they take to throwing sticks in the 

 manner of javelins, and then learn the use of the bow and arrow. 

 Their games are all warlike. Parties of them under a leader take 

 up a position on the play-ground, which they defend against the 

 attacks of other bands, stones ; sticks and headless arrows being 

 used in this mimic warfare. Where tobacco is easily obtained 

 Kookie children smoke almost as much as the men, both boys and 

 girls commencing the practice at the early age of five or six years : 

 nor does it appear to have any baneful effect upon them. At twelve 

 or thirteen, the boy is compelled to put aside boyish things, and 

 commences undertaking the labours of cultivation. He is also at 

 this age no longer allowed to sleep in the house of his parents, but 

 associates with the young men whose duty it is to guard the village. 

 He is still, however, strictly under parental control, takes his meals 

 at home, and assists his father in the field. Filial respect takes a 

 curious form among the Kookies. The father's name is held sacred 

 from utterance by the son, and in common intercourse is never used, 

 the style of address both to him and of him to others being simply 

 " my father" (Kapa). But when stung by insult, or rushing to the 

 battle this rule is broken through, and a man will exclaim " How 

 dare you say this to the son of so and so!" or in the latter case 

 "Who dares to meet the son of &c." A Kookie boy of twelve 

 is very different from most other children. He is sparely built, and 

 has an unhealthy look ; most probably some hereditary taint or 

 cutaneous disease is even at this early age breaking out in sores and 

 blotches on his face and limbs ; but he is active beyond anything 

 human. There is not a tree which he cannot climb, nor a position into 

 which he will not throw himself. His endurance of fatigue is almost 



