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
In her interesting article on "Imitation in Children," Miss Haskell
observes: "That the imitative faculty is what makes the human being
educable, that it is what has made progressive civilization possible,
has always been known by philosophical educators. The energy of the
child must pass from potentiality to actuality, and it does so by the
path of _imitation_ because this path offers the least resistance
or the greatest attraction, or perhaps because there is no other road.
Whatever new and striking things he sees in the movements or condition
of objects about him, provided he already has the experience necessary
to apperceive this particular thing, he imitates" (260. 31).
In the pedagogy of primitive peoples imitation has an extensive
_rôle_ to play. Of the Twana Indians, of the State of Washington,
Rev. Mr. Eells observes: "Children are taught continually, from youth
until grown, to mimic the occupations of their elders." They have games
of ball, jumping and running races, and formerly "the boys played at
shooting with bows and arrows at a mark, and with spears, throwing at a
mark, with an equal number of children on each side, and sometimes the
older ones joined in." Now, however, "the'boys mimic their seniors in
the noise and singing and gambling, but without the gambling." The girls
play with dolls, and sometimes "the girls and boys both play in canoes,
and stand on half of a small log, six feet long and a foot wide, and
paddle around in the water with a small stick an inch in thickness; and,
in fact, play at most things which they see their seniors do, both
whites and Indians" (437. 90, 91). Concerning the Seminoles of Florida,
we are told: "The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he
is to make his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt
to nourish him, and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill; but,
as far as possible, she goes her own way and leaves the little fellow to
go his." Very early in life the child learns to help and to imitate its
elders. "No small amount," Mr. MacCauley tells us, "of the labour in a
Seminole household is done by children, even as young as four years of
age. They can stir the soup while it is boiling; they can aid in
kneading the dough for bread; they can wash the 'koonti' root, and even
pound it; they can watch and replenish the fire; they contribute in this
and many other small ways to the necessary work of the home" (496. 497,
498).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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