The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 16

An Indian tribe of California believe that "the rain is the falling tears of Indians sick in heaven," and they say that it was "the tears of all mankind, weeping for the loss of a good young Indian," that caused the deluge, in which all were drowned save a single couple (440. 488).

Oriental legend relates, that, in his utter loneliness after the expulsion from Paradise, "Adam shed such an abundance of tears that all beasts and birds satisfied their thirst therewith; but some of them sunk into the earth, and, as they still contained some of the juices of his food in Paradise, produced the most fragrant trees and spices." We are further told that "the tears flowed at last in such torrents from Adam's eyes, that those of his right started the Euphrates, while those of his left set the Tigris in motion" (547. 34).

These are some of the answers of the folk to the question of Shakespeare:--

"What's the matter, That this distempered messenger of wet, The many-coloured Iris, rounds thine eye?"

And many more are there that run along the lines of Scott's epigrammatic summation:--

"A child will weep a bramble's smart, A maid to see her sparrow part, A stripling for a woman's heart: But woe betide a country, when She sees the tears of bearded men."

_Cradles._

According to Mr. Powers: "The conspicuous painstaking which the Modok squaw expends upon her baby-basket is an index of her maternal love. And indeed the Modok are strongly attached to their offspring,--a fact abundantly attested by many sad and mournful spectacles witnessed in the closing scenes of the war of 1873. On the other hand, a California squaw often carelessly sets her baby in a deep, conical basket, the same in which she carries her household effects, leaving him loose and liable to fall out. If she makes a baby-basket, it is totally devoid of ornament; and one tribe, the Miwok, contemptuously call it 'the dog's nest.' It is among Indians like these that we hear of infanticide" (519. 257).

The subject of children's cradles, baby-baskets, baby-boards, and the methods of manipulating and carrying the infant in connection therewith, have been treated of in great detail by Ploss (325), Pokrovski, and Mason (306), the second of whom has written especially of the cradles in use among the various peoples of European and Asiatic Eussia, with a general view of those employed by other races, the last with particular reference to the American aborigines. The work is ill.u.s.trated, as is also that of Ploss, with many engravings. Professor Mason thus briefly sums up the various purposes which the different species of cradle subserve (306. 161-162):--

"(1) It is a mere nest for the helpless infant.

"(2) It is a bed so constructed and manipulated as to enable the child to sleep either in a vertical or a horizontal position.

"(3) It is a vehicle in which the child is to be transported, chiefly on the mother's back by means of a strap over the forehead, but frequently dangling like a bundle at the saddle-bow. This function, of course, always modifies the structure of the cradle, and, indeed, may have determined its very existence among nomadic tribes.

"(4) It is indeed a cradle, to be hung upon the limbs to rock, answering literally to the nursery-rhyme:--

'Rock-a-bye baby upon the tree-top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough bends, the cradle will fall, Down will come baby, and cradle, and all.'

"(5) It is also a playhouse and baby-jumper. On many--nearly all--specimens may be seen dangling objects to evoke the senses, foot-rests by means of which the little one may exercise its legs, besides other conveniences antic.i.p.atory of the child's needs.

"(6) The last set of functions to which the frame is devoted are those relating to what we may call the graduation of infancy, when the papoose crawls out of its chrysalis little by little, and then abandons it altogether. The child is next seen standing partly on the mother's cincture and partly hanging to her neck, or resting like a pig in a poke within the folds of her blanket."

Professor Mason sees in the cradle-board or frame "the child of geography and of meteorology," and in its use "a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of Bastian's theory of 'great areas.'" In the frozen North, for example, "the Eskimo mother carries her infant in the hood of her parka whenever it is necessary to take it abroad. If she used a board or a frame, the child would perish with the cold."

The varieties of cradles are almost endless. We have the "hood"

(sometimes the "boot") of the Eskimo; the birch-bark cradle (or hammock) of several of the northern tribes (as in Alaska, or Cape Breton); the "moss-bag" of the eastern Tinne, the use of which has now extended to the employes of the Hudson's Bay Company; the "trough-cradle" of the Bilqula; the Chinook cradle, with its apparatus for head-flattening; the trowel-shaped cradle of the Oregon coast; the wicker-cradle of the Hupas; the Klamath cradle of wicker and rushes; the Pomo cradle of willow rods and wicker-work, with rounded portion for the child to sit in; the Mohave cradle, with ladder-frame, having a bed of shredded bark for the child to lie upon; the Yaqui cradle of canes, with soft bosses for pillows; the Nez Perce cradle-board with buckskin sides, and the Sahaptian, Ute, and Kootenay cradles which resemble it; the Moki cradle-frame of coa.r.s.e wicker, with an awning; the Navajo cradle, with wooden hood and awning of dressed buckskin; the rude Comanche cradle, made of a single stiff piece of black-bear skin; the Blackfoot cradle of lattice-work and leather; the shoe-shaped Sioux cradle, richly adorned with coloured bead-work; the Iroquois cradle (now somewhat modernized), with "the back carved in flowers and birds, and painted blue, red, green, and yellow." Among the Araucanians of Chili we meet with a cradle which "seems to be nothing more than a short ladder, with cross-bars,"

to which the child is lashed. In the tropical regions and in South America we find the habit of "carrying the children in the shawl or sash, and bedding them in the hammock." Often, as in various parts of Africa, the woman herself forms the cradle, the child clinging astride her neck or hips, with no bands or attachments whatever. Of woman as carrier much may be read in the entertaining and instructive volume of Professor Mason (113). The primitive cradle, bed, and carrier, was the mother.

_Father and Child._

With many of the more primitive races, the idea so tritely expressed in our familiar saying, "He is a chip of the old block,"--_patris est filius_, "he is the son of his father,"--and so beautifully wrought out by Shakespeare,--

"Behold, my lords, Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip, The trick of his frown, his forehead; nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger,"

has a strong hold, making itself felt in a thousand ways and fas.h.i.+ons.

The many rites and ceremonies, ablutions, fastings, abstentions from certain foods and drinks, which the husband has to undergo and submit to among certain more or less uncivilized peoples, shortly before, or after, or upon, the occasion of the birth of a child, or while his wife is pregnant, arise, in part at least, from a firm belief in the influence of parent upon child and the intimate sympathy between them even while the latter is yet unborn. Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn says, they believe that if the father should eat the flesh of the capybara, the child would have large protruding teeth like that animal, while if he should eat that of the labba, the child's skin would be spotted. "Apparently there is also some idea that for the father to eat strong food, to wash, to smoke, to handle weapons, would have the same result as if the new-born baby ate such food, washed, smoked, or played with edged tools." The connection between the father and the child, the author thinks, is thought by these Indians to be much closer than that existing between the mother and her offspring (477. 218). Much has been written about, and many explanations suggested for, this ancient and widespread custom. The investigations of recent travellers seem to have cast some light upon this difficult problem in ethnology.

Dr. Karl von den Steinen (536. 331-337) tells us that the native tribes of Central Brazil not only believe that the child is "the son of the father," but that it _is_ the father. To quote his own significant words: "The father is the patient in so far as he feels himself one with the new-born child. It is not very difficult to see how he arrives at this conclusion. Of the human egg-cell and the Graafian follicle the aborigine is not likely to know anything, nor can he know that the mother lodges the thing corresponding to the eggs of birds. For him the man is the bearer of the eggs, which, to speak plainly and clearly, lays in the mother, and which she hatches during the period of pregnancy. In the linguistic material at hand we see how this very natural attempt to explain generation finds expression in the words for 'father', 't.e.s.t.i.c.l.e,' and 'egg.' In Guarani _tub_ means 'father, sp.a.w.n, eggs,' _tupia_ 'eggs,' and even _tup-i_, the name of the people (the _-i_ is diminutive) really signifies 'little father,'

or 'eggs,' or 'children,' as you please; the 'father' is 'egg,' and the 'child' is 'the little father.' Even the language declares that the 'child' is nothing else than the 'father.' Among the Tupi the father was also accustomed to take a new name after the birth of each new son; to explain this, it is in no way necessary to a.s.sume that the 'soul' of the father proceeds each time into the son. In Karabi we find exactly the same idea; _imu_ is 'egg,' or 't.e.s.t.i.c.l.es,'

or 'child.'"

Among other cognate tribes we find the same thoughts:--

In the Ipurucoto language _imu_ signifies "egg."

In the Bakari language _imu_ signifies "t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es."

In the Tamanako language _imu_ signifies "father."

In the Makusi language _imu_ signifies "s.e.m.e.n."

In several dialects _imu-ru_ signifies "child."

Dr. von den Steinen further observes: "Among the Bakari 'child' and 'small' are both _imeri_, 'the child of the chief,' _pima imeri_; we can translate as we please, either 'the child of the chief,' or 'the little chief,' and in the case of the latter form, which we can use more in jest of the son, we are not aware that to the Indian the child is really nothing more than the little chief, the miniature of the big one. Strange and hardly intelligible to us is this idea when it is a girl that is in question. For the girl, too, is 'the little _father_,' and not 'the little _mother_'; it is only the father who has made her. In Bakari there are no special words for 'son'

and 'daughter,' but a s.e.x-suffix is added to the word for child when a distinction is necessary; _pima imeri_ may signify either the son or the daughter of the chief. The only daughter of the chief is the inheritrix of possession and rank, both of which pa.s.s over with her own possession to the husband." The whole question of the "Couvade" and like practices finds its solution in these words of the author: "The behaviour of the mother, according as she is regarded as more or less suffering, may differ much with the various tribes, while the conduct of the father is practically the same with all She goes about her business, if she feels strong enough, suckles her child, etc. Between the father and the child there is no mysterious correlation; the child is a multiplication of him; the father is duplicated, and in order that no harm may come to the helpless, irrational creature, a miniature of himself, he must demean himself as a child" (536. 338).

The close relations.h.i.+p between father and child appears also in folk-medicine, where children (or often adults) are preserved from, or cured of, certain ailments and diseases by the application of blood drawn from the father.

In Bavaria a popular remedy against cramps consisted in "the father p.r.i.c.king himself in the finger and giving the child in its mouth three drops of blood out of the wound," and at Rackow, in Neu Stettin, to cure epilepsy in little children, "the father gives the child three drops of blood out of the first joint of his ring-finger" (361. 19). In Annam, when a physician cures a small-pox patient, it is thought that the pocks pa.s.s over to his children, and among the Dieyerie of South Australia, when a child has met with an accident, "all the relatives are beaten with sticks or boomerangs on the head till the blood flows over their faces. This is believed to lessen the pain of the child" (397. 60, 205).

Among some savage and uncivilized peoples, the father is a.s.sociated closely with the child from the earliest days of its existence. With the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, it is the father who, "from the day of its birth onwards presses the skull and body of the child to give them the proper form," and among the Macusi Indians of Guiana, the father "in early youth, pierces the ear-lobe, the lower lip, and the septum of the nose," while with the Pampas Indians of the Argentine, in the third year of the child's life, the child's ears are pierced by the father in the following fas.h.i.+on: "A horse has its feet tied together, is thrown to the ground, and held fast. The child is then brought out and placed on the horse, while the father bores its ears with a needle" (326.1.296,301).

With some primitive peoples the father evinces great affection for his child. Concerning the natives of Australia whom he visited, Lumholtz observes: "The father may also be good to the child, and he frequently carries it, takes it in his lap, pats it, searches its hair, plays with it, and makes little boomerangs which he teaches it to throw. He, however, prefers boys to girls, and does not pay much attention to the latter" (495.193). Speaking of another region of the world where infanticide prevailed,--the Solomon Islands,--Mr. Guppy cites not a few instances of parental regard and affection. On one occasion "the chief's son, a little shapeless ma.s.s of flesh, a few months old, was handed about from man to man with as much care as if he had been composed of something brittle." Of chief Gorai and his wife, whose child was blind, the author says: "I was much struck with the tenderness displayed in the manner of both the parents towards their little son, who, seated in his mother's lap, placed his hand in that of his father, when he was directed to raise his eyes towards the light for my inspection" (466.

47).

Of the Patwin Indians of California, who are said to rank among the lowest of the race, Mr. Powers tells us: "Parents are very easygoing with their children, and never systematically punish them, though they sometimes strike them in momentary anger. On the Sacramento they teach them how to swim when a few weeks old by holding them on their hands in the water. I have seen a father coddle and teeter his baby in an attack of crossness for an hour with the greatest patience, then carry him down to the river, laughing good-naturedly, gently dip the little brown smooth-skinned nugget in the waves clear under, and then lay him on the moist, warm sand. The treatment was no less effectual than harmless, for it stopped the perverse, persistent squalling at once" (519. 222). Such demonstrations of tenderness have been supposed to be rare among the Indians, but the same authority says again: "Many is the Indian I have seen tending the baby with far more patience and good-nature than a civilized father would display" (519. 23). Concerning the Eskimo, Eeclus observes: "All over Esquimaux Land fathers and mothers vie with one another in spoiling their offspring, never strike, and rarely rebuke them" (523. 37).

Among the Indians of British Guiana, according to Mr. im Thurn, both mother and father are "very affectionate towards the young child." The mother "almost always, even when working, carries it against her hip, slung in a small hammock from her neck or shoulder," while the father, "when he returns from hunting, brings it strange seeds to play with, and makes it necklaces and other ornaments." The young children themselves "seem fully to reciprocate the affection of their parents; but as they grow older, the affection on both sides seems to cool, though, in reality, it perhaps only becomes less demonstrative" (477. 219).

Everywhere we find evidence of parental affection and love for children, s.h.i.+ning sometimes from the depths of savagery and filling with suns.h.i.+ne at least a few hours of days that seem so sombre and full of gloom when viewed afar off.

Mr. Scudder has treated at considerable length the subject of "Childhood in Literature and Art" (350), dealing with it as found in Greek, Roman, Hebrew, Early Christian, English, French, German, American, literature, in mediaeval art, and in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales. Of Greek the author observes: "There is scarcely a child's voice to be heard in the whole range of Greek poetic art. The conception is universally of the child, not as acting, far less as speaking, but as a pa.s.sive member of the social order. It is not its individual so much as its related life which is contemplated." The silent presence of children in the roles of the Greek drama is very impressive (350. 21). At Rome, though childhood is more of a "vital force" than in Greece, yet "it is not contemplated as a fine revelation of nature." Sometimes, in its brutal aspects, "children are reckoned as scarcely more than cubs," yet with refinement they "come to represent the more spiritual side of the family life." The folktale of Romulus and Remus and Catullus' picture of the young Torquatus represent these two poles (350. 32). The scant appearances of children in the Old Testament, the constant prominence given to the male succession, are followed later on by the promise which buds and flowers in the world-child Jesus, and the childhood which is the new-birth, the golden age of which Jewish seers and prophets had dreamt. In early Christianity, it would appear that, with the exception of the representation in art of the child, the infant Christ, "childhood as an image had largely faded out of art and literature" (350. 80). The Renaissance "turned its face toward childhood, and looked into that image for the profoundest realization of its hopes and dreams" (350.

102), and since then Christianity has followed that path. And the folk were walking in these various ages and among these different peoples humbly along the same road, which their geniuses travelled. Of the great modern writers and poets, the author notes especially Wordsworth, through whom the child was really born in our literature, the linker together of the child and the race; Rousseau, who told of childhood as "refuge from present evil, a mournful reminiscence of a lost Paradise, who (like St. Pierre) preached a return to nature, and left his own offspring to the tender mercy of a foundling asylum"; Luther, the great religious reformer, who was ever "a father among his children"; Goethe, who represents German intellectualism, yet a great child-artist; Froebel, the patron saint of the kindergarten; Hans Andersen, the "inventor" of fairy-tales, and the transformer of folk-stories, that rival the genuine, untouched, inedited article; Hawthorne, the child-artist of America.

CHAPTER VIII.