The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F. Chamberlain (read full novel txt) 📖

bear” children, cognate with Modern High German ge-bären, Gothic gabairan, Latin ferre (whence fertilis), Greek [Greek: ferein], Sanskrit bhri, etc., all from the Indo-European root bher, “to carry”—compare the use of tragen in Modern High German: sie trägt ein Kind unter dem Herzen. The passive verb is “to be born” literally, “to be borne, to be carried, produced,” and the noun corresponding, birth, cognate with German Geburt, and Old Norse burthr, which meant “embryo” as well. Related ideas are seen in burden, and in the Latin, fors, fortuna, for “fortune” is but that which is “borne” or “produced, brought forth,” just as the Modern High German Heil, “fortune, luck,” is probably connected with the Indo-European radical gen, “to produce.”

Corresponding to the Latin parentes, in meaning, we have the Gothic berusjos, “the bearers,” or “parents”; we still use in English, “forbears,” in the sense of ancestors. The good old English phrase “with child,” which finds its analogues in many other languages, has, through false modesty, been almost driven out of literature, as it has been out of conversational language, by pregnant, which comes to us from the Latins, who also used gravidus,—a word we now apply only to animals, especially dogs and ants,—and enceinte, borrowed from French, and referring to the ancient custom of girding a woman who was with child. Similarly barren of direct reference to the child are accouchement, which we have borrowed from French, and the German Entbindung.

In German, Grimm enumerates, among other phrases relating to childbirth, the following, the particular meanings and uses of which are explained in his great dictionary: Schwanger, gross zum Kinde, zum Kinde gehen, zum Kinde arbeiten, um’s Kind kommen, mit Kinde, ein Kind tragen, Kindesgrosz, Kindes schwer, Kinder haben, Kinder bekommen, Kinder kriegen, niederkommen, entbinden, and the quaint and beautiful eines Kindes genesen,—all used of the mother. Applied to both parents we find Kinder machen, Kinder bekommen (now used more of the mother), Kinder erzeugen (more recently, of the father only), Kinder erzielen.

Our English word girl is really a diminutive (from a stem gir, seen in Old Low German gör, “a child”) from some Low German dialect, and, though it now signifies only “a female child, a young woman,” in Middle English gerl (_girl, gurl_) was applied to a young person of either sex. In the Swiss dialects to-day gurre, or gurrli, is a name given to a “girl” in a depreciatory sense, like our own “girl-boy.” In many primitive tongues there do not appear to be special words for “son” and “daughter,” or for “boy” and “girl,” as distinguished from each other, these terms being rendered “male-child (man-child),” and “female-child (woman-child)” respectively. The “man-child” of the King James’ version of the Scriptures belongs in this category. In not a few languages, the words for “son” and “daughter” and for “boy” and “girl” mean really “little man,” and “little woman”—a survival of which thought meets us in the “little man” with which his elders are even now wont to denominate “the small boy.” In the Nahuatl language of Mexico, “woman” is ciuatl, “girl” ciuatontli; in the Niskwalli, of the State of Washington, “man” is stobsh, “boy” stótomish, “woman” sláne, “girl” cháchas (i.e. “small”) sláne; in the Tacana, of South. America, “man” is dreja, “boy” drejave, “woman” epuna, “girl” epunave. And but too often the “boys” and “girls” even as mere children are “little men and women” in more respects than that of name.

In some languages the words for “son,” “boy,” “girl” are from the same root. Thus, in the Mazatec language, of Mexico, we find indidi “boy,” tzadi “girl,” indi “son,” and in the Cholona, of Peru, nun-pullup “boy,” ila-pullup “girl,” pul “son,”—where ila means “female,” and nun “male.”

In some others, as was the case with the Latin puella, from puer, the word for “girl” seems derived from that for “boy.” Thus, we have in Maya, mehen “son,” ix-mehen “daughter,”— -ix is a feminine prefix; and in the Jívaro, of Ecuador, vila “son,” vilalu, “daughter.”

Among very many primitive peoples, the words for “babe, infant, child,” signify really “small,” “little one,” like the Latin parvus, the Scotch wean (for wee ane, “wee one”), etc. In Hawaiian, for example, the “child” is called keiki, “the little one,” and in certain Indian languages of the Western Pacific slope, the Wiyot kusha’ma “child,” Yuke únsil “infant,” Wintun cru-tut “infant,” Niskwalli chá chesh “child (boy),” all signify literally “small,” “little one.”

Some languages, again, have diminutives of the word for “child,” often formed by reduplication, like the wee wean of Lowland Scotch, and the pilpil, “infant” of the Nahuatl of Mexico.

In the Snanaimuq language, of Vancouver Island, the words k·ä‘ela, “male infant,” and k·ä‘k·ela, “female infant,” mean simply “the weak one.” In the Modoc, of Oregon, a “baby” is literally, “what is carried on one’s self.” In the Tsimshian, of British Columbia, the word wok·â’ûts, “female infant,” signifies really “without labrets,” indicating that the creature is yet too young for the lip ornaments. In Latin, liberi, one of the words for “children,” shows on its face that it meant only “children, as opposed to the slaves of the house, servi“; for liberi really denotes “the free ones.” In “the Galibi language of Brazil, tigami signifies ‘young brother, son, and little child,’ indiscriminately.” The following passage from Westermarck recalls the “my son,” etc., of our higher conversational or even officious style (166.93):—

“Mr. George Bridgman states that, among the Mackay blacks of Queensland, the word for ‘daughter’ is used by a man for any young woman belonging to the class to which his daughter would belong if he had one. And, speaking of the Australians, Eyre says, ‘In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite; … almost everything that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with their relative ages and circumstances.”

Similar phenomena meet us in the language of the criminal classes, and the slang of the wilder youth of the country.

Among the Andaman Islanders: “Parents, when addressing or referring to their children, and not using names, employ distinct terms, the father calling his son dar ô-dire, i.e. ‘he that has been begotten by me,’ and his daughter, dar ô-dire-pail-; while the mother makes use of the word dab ê-tire, i.e. ‘he whom I have borne,’ for the former, and dab ê-tire pail- for the latter; similarly, friends, in speaking of children to their parents, say respectively, ngar ô-dire, or ngab ê-tire (your son), ngar ô-dire-pail-, or ngab ê-tire-pail- (your daughter)” (498. 59).

In the Tonkawé Indian language of Texas, “to be born” is nikaman yekéwa, literally, “to become bones,” and in the Klamath, of Oregon, “to give birth,” is nkâcgî, from nkák, “the top of the head,” and gî, “to make,” or perhaps from kák’gî, “to produce bones,” from the idea that the seat of life is in the bones. In the Nipissing dialect of the Algonkian tongue, ni kanis, “my brother,” signifies literally, “my little bone,” an etymology which, in the light of the expressions cited above, reminds one of the Greek [Greek: adelphos], and the familiar “bone of my bone,” etc. A very interesting word for “child” is Sanskrit toka, Greek [Greek: teknon], from the Indo-European radical tek, “to prepare, make, produce, generate.” To the same root belong Latin texere, “to weave,” Greek [Greek: technae] “art”; so that the child and art have their names from the same primitive source—the mother was the former of the child as she was of the chief arts of life.

 

“Flower-Names.”

The people who seem to have gone farthest in the way of words for “child” are the Andaman Islanders, who have an elaborate system of nomenclature from the first year to the twelfth or fifteenth, when childhood may be said to end. There are also in use a profusion of “flower-names” and complimentary terms. The “flower-names” are confined to girls and young women who are not mothers. The following list shows the peculiarity of the name-giving:—

1. Proper name chosen before birth of child: ._dô‘ra_.

2. If child turns out to be a boy, he is called: ._dô‘ra-ô‘ta_; if a girl, ._dô‘ra-kâ‘ta_; these names (_ô‘ta_ and kâ‘ta refer to the genital organs of the two sexes) are used during the first two or three years only.

3. Until he reaches puberty, the boy is called: ._dô‘ra dâ‘la_, and the girl, .dô‘ra-po’il’ola.

4. When she reaches maturity, the girl is said to be ún-lâ-wi, or â‘kà-lá-wi, and receives a “flower-name” chosen from the one of “the eighteen prescribed trees which blossom in succession” happening to be in season when she attains womanhood.

5. If this should occur in the middle of August, when the Pterocarpus dalbergoides, called châ‘langa, is in flower, “._dô‘ra-po-ilola_ would become ._chà‘garu dô‘ra_, and this double name would cling to the girl until she married and was a mother, then the ‘flower’ name would give way to the more dignified term chän’a (madam or mother)._dô‘ra_; if childless, a woman has to pass a few years of married life before she is called chän’a, after which no further change is made in her name.”

Much other interesting information about name-giving may be found in the pages of Mr. Man’s excellent treatise on this primitive people (498.

59-61; 201-208).

 

Sign Language.

Interesting details about signs and symbols for “child” may be found in the elaborate article of Colonel Mallery on “Sign Language among North American Indians” (497a), and the book of Mr. W. P. Clark on Indian Sign Language (420).

Colonel Mallery tells us that “the Egyptian hieroglyphists, notably in the designation of Horus, their dawn-god, used the finger in or on the lips for ‘child.’ It has been conjectured in the last instance that the gesture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to speak, in-fans.” This conjecture, however, the author rejects (497a. 304). Among the Arapaho Indians “the sign for child, baby, is the forefinger in the mouth, i.e. a nursing child, and a natural sign of a deaf-mute is the same;” related seem also the ancient Chinese forms for “son” and “birth,” as well as the symbol for the latter among the Dakota Indians (494 a. 356). Clark describes the symbol for “child,” which is based upon those for “parturition” and “height,” thus: “Bring the right hand, back outwards, in front of centre of body, and close to it, fingers extended, touching, pointing outwards and downwards; move the hands on a curve downwards and outwards; then carry the right hand, back outwards, well out to front and right of body, fingers extended and pointing upwards, hand resting at supposed height of child; the hand is swept into last position at the completion of first gesture. In speaking of children generally, and, in fact, unless it is desired to indicate height or age of the child, the first sign is all that is used or is necessary. This sign also means the young of any animal. In speaking of children generally, sometimes the signs for different heights are only made. Deaf-mutes make the combined sign for male and female, and then denote the height with right