The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-DayChamberlain, Alexander Francis
Science
The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought: Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-Day
Chamberlain, Alexander Francis
Child rearing; Children -- Folklore; Folklore and children
"While he was engaged with the broken limbs, a little female crawfish,
carrying her infant sister on her back, came up seeking her relations.
Finding they had all been devoured by the raccoon, she resolved not to
survive the destruction of her kindred, but went boldly up to the enemy,
and said: 'Here, Aissibun (Raccoon), you behold me and my little sister.
We are all alone. You have eaten up our parents and all our friends. Eat
us, too!' And she continued to say: 'Eat us, too! _Aissibun amoon,
Aissibun amoon!'_ The raccoon was ashamed. 'No!' said he,' I have
banqueted on the largest and fattest; I will not dishonour myself with
such little prey.' At this moment, Manabozbo [the culture-hero or
demi-god of these Indians] happened to pass by. _'Tyau,'_ said he
to the raccoon, 'thou art a thief and an unmerciful dog. Get thee up
into trees, lest I change thee into one of these same worm-fish; for
thou wast thyself a shell-fish originally, and I transformed thee.'
Manabozho then took up the little supplicant crawfish and her infant
sister, and cast them into the stream. 'There,' said he, 'you may dwell.
Hide yourselves under the stones; and hereafter you shall be playthings
for little children'" (440. 411, 412).
_Games._
The imitation of animals, their movements, habits, and peculiarities in
games and dances, also makes the child acquainted at an early age with
these creatures.
In the section on "Bird and Beast," appropriately headed by the words of
the good St. Francis of Assisi--"My brother, the hare, ... my sisters,
the doves,"--Mr. Newell notices some of the children's games in which
the actions, cries, etc., of animals are imitated. Such are "My
Household," "Frog-Pond," "Bloody Tom," "Blue-birds and Yellow-birds,"
"Ducks fly" (313. 115).
_Doves._
Not at Dodona and in Arcadia alone has the dove been associated with
religion, its oracles, its mysteries, and its symbolism. In the
childhood of the world, according to the great Hebrew cosmologist, "the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," and a later bard and
seer of our own race reanimated the ancient figure of his predecessor in
all its pristine strength, when in, the story of Paradise lost and found
again, he told how, at the beginning, the creative spirit
"Dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast abyss."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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