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
Not alone this, but, sometimes, as among the Bura Negroes of the upper
Blue Nile region, the advent of her child brings with it a modification
in the dress of the mother. With these people, young girls wear an apron
in front, married women one in front and one behind, but women who have
already had a child wear two in front, one over the other. A similar
remark applies to tattooing and kindred ornamentations of the body and
its members. Among the women of the Bajansi on the middle Congo, for
example, a certain form of tattoo indicated that the woman had borne a
child (530. 78).
Schurtz points out that the kangaroo-skin breast-covering of the
Tasmanian women, the shoulder and arm strips worn by the women of the
Monbuttu in Africa, the skin mantles of the Marutse, the thick
hip-girdle of the Tupende, and other articles of clothing of a like
nature, seem to be really survivals of devices for carrying children,
and not to have been originally intended as dress _per se_ (530.
110, 111). Thus early does childhood become a social factor.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHILD AS MEMBER AND BUILDER OF SOCIETY.
In great states, children are always trying to remain children, and the
parents wanting to make men and women of them. In vile states, the
children are always wanting to be men and women, and the parents to keep
them children.--_Ruskin_.
Children generally hate to be idle; all the care is then that their busy
humour should be constantly employed in something of use to
them.--_Locke_.
Look into our childish faces;
See you not our willing hearts?
Only love us--only lead us;
Only let us know you need us,
And we all will do our parts.--_Mary Howitt_.
[Greek: Anthropos Phusei zoon politikon] [Man is by nature a political
(social) animal].--_Aristotle_.
Never till now did young men, and almost children, take such a command
in human affairs.--_Carlyle_.
Predestination and Caste.
"Who can tell for what high cause
This darling of the Gods was born?"
asks the poet Marvell. But with some peoples the task of answering the
question is an easy one; for fate, or its human side, caste, has settled
the matter long before the infant comes into the world. The Chinese
philosopher, Han Wan-Kung, is cited by Legge as saying: "When Shuh-yu
was born, his mother knew, as soon as she looked at him, that he would
fall a victim to his love of bribes. When Yang sze-go was born, the
mother of Shuh-he-ang knew, as soon as she heard him cry, that he would
cause the destruction of all his kindred. When Yueh-tseaou was born,
Tzewan considered it was a great calamity, knowing that through him all
the ghosts of the Johgaou family would be famished" (487. 89).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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