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
and the same remark might be made of the children of some primitive
peoples. Not infrequently the child is named before it is born. Of the
Central Eskimo we read that often before the birth of the child, "some
relative or friend lays his hand upon the mother's stomach, and decides
what the infant is to be called; and, as the name serves for either sex,
it is of no consequence whether it be a girl or a boy" (402. 612, 590).
Polle has a good deal to say of the deep significance of the name with
certain peoples--"to be" and "to be named" appearing sometimes as
synonymous (517. 99). "Hallowed be Thy name" expresses the ideas of many
generations of men. With the giving of a name the soul and being of a
former bearer of it were supposed to enter into and possess the child or
youth upon whom it was conferred. Kink says of the Eskimo of East
Greenland, that "they seemed to consider man as consisting of three
independent parts,--soul, body, name" (517. 122). One can easily
understand the mysterious associations of the name, the taboos of its
utterance or pronunciation so common among primitive peoples--the
reluctance to speak the name of a dead person, as well as the desire to
confer the name of such a one upon a new-born child, spring both from
the same source.
The folk-lore and ceremonial of name-giving are discussed at length in
Ploss, and the special treatises on popular customs. In several parts of
Germany, it is held to be ominous for misfortune or harm to the child,
if the name chosen for it should be made known before baptism.
Sometimes, the child is hardly recognized as existing until he has been
given a name. In Gerbstadt in Mansfeld, Germany, the child before it
receives its name is known as "dovedung," and, curiously enough, in
far-off Samoa, the corresponding appellation is "excrement of the
family-god" (517.103).
The following statement, regarding one of the American Indian tribes,
will stand for many other primitive peoples: "The proper names of the
Dakotas are words, simple and compounded, which are in common use in the
language. They are usually given to children by the father, grandfather,
or some other influential relative. When young men have distinguished
themselves in battle, they frequently take to themselves new names, as
the names of distinguished ancestors of warriors now dead. The son of a
chief when he comes to the chieftainship, generally takes the name of
his father or grandfather, so that the same names, as in other more
powerful dynasties, are handed down along the royal lines" (524. 44-45).
Of the same people we are also told: "The Dakotas have no family or
surnames. But the children of a family have particular names which
belong to them, in the order of their birth up to the fifth child. These
names are for boys, Caske, Hepan, Hepi, Catan, and Hake. For girls they
are, Windna, Hapan, Hapistinna, Wanske, and Wihake."
_Terms applied to Children._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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