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

hand held horizontally” (420. 109).

For “baby,” deaf-mutes “hold extended left hand back down, in front of body, forearm about horizontal and pointing to right and front; then lay the back of partially compressed right hand on left forearm near wrist”

(420. 57).

 

Names.

The interesting and extensive field of personal onomatology—the study of personal names—cannot be entered upon exhaustively here. Shakespeare has said:—

 

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet,”—

 

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 newborn 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.

An interesting study might be made of the words we apply to children in respect of size, little, small, wee, tiny, etc., very many of which, in their etymology, have no reference to childhood, or indeed to smallness. The derivation of little is uncertain, but the word is reasonably thought to have meant “little” in the sense of “deceitful, mean,” from the radical lut, “to stoop” (hence “to creep, to sneak”). Curiously enough, the German klein has lost its original meaning,—partly seen in our clean,—“bright, clear.” Small also belongs in the same category, as the German schmal, “narrow, slim,” indicates, though perhaps the original signification may have been “small” as we now understand it; a cognate word is the Latin macer, “thin, lean,” which has lost an s at the beginning. Even wee, as the phrase “a little wee bit” hints, is thought (by Skeat) to be nothing more than a Scandinavian form of the same word which appears in our English way. Skeat also tells us that “a little teeny boy,” meant at first “a little fractious (peevish) boy,” being derived from an old word teen, “anger, peevishness.” Analogous to tiny is pettish, which is derived from pet, “mama’s pet,” “a spoiled child.” Endless would the list of words of this class be, if we had at our disposal the projected English dialect dictionary; many other illustrations might be drawn from the numerous German dialect dictionaries and the great Swiss lexicon of Tobler.

Still more interesting, perhaps, would be the discussion of the special words used to denote the actions and movements of children of all ages, and the names and appellatives of the child derived from considerations of age, constitution, habits, actions, speech, etc., which are especially numerous in Low German dialects and such forms of English speech as the Lowland Scotch. Worthy of careful attention are the synonyms of child, the comparisons in which the child figures in the speech of civilized and uncivilized man; the slang terms also, which, like the common expression of to-day, kid, often go back to a very primitive state of mind, when “children” and “kids” were really looked upon as being more akin than now. Beside the terms of contempt and sarcasm,—_goose_, loon, pig, calf, donkey, etc.,—those figures of speech which, the world over, express the sentiment of the writer of the Wisdom of Solomon regarding the foolishness of babes,—we, like the ancient Mexicans and many another lower race, have terms of praise and endearment,—“a jewel of a babe,” and the like,—legions of caressives and diminutives in the use of which some of the Low German dialects are more lavish even than Lowland Scotch.

In Grimm’s great Deutsches Wörterbuch, the synonymy of the word Kind and its semasiology are treated at great length, with a multitude of examples and explanations, useful to students of English, whose dictionaries lag behind in these respects. The child in language is a fertile subject for the linguist and the psychologist, and the field is as yet almost entirely unexplored.

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

THE CHILD IN THE PRIMITIVE LABORATORY.

As if no mother had made you look nice.—_Proverbial Saying of Songish Indians._

Spare the rod and spoil the child.—_Hebrew Proverb._

Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.—_Daniel_ v. 27.

He has lost his measure.—_German Saying._

“Licking into Shape.”

Pope, in the Dunciad, has the well-known lines:—

 

“So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear,”

 

a conceit found in Burton, Montaigne, Byron, and other writers, and based upon an old folk-belief that the cubs are born a formless lump which the mother-bear has to “lick into shape.” The same idea gave rise to the “ours mal léché” of French, and our own colloquial expression “an ill-licked cub.” In an Alemanian lullaby sung while washing and combing the child, occurs the following curious passage:—

 

“I bin e chleine Pumpernickel, I bin e chleine Bär, Und wie mi Gott erschaffe hät, So wagglen ich derher,” [“I am a little Pumpernickel, I am a little bear, And just as God has fashioned me I wiggle about,”]

 

which, perhaps, contains the same thought. In a recent article, Professor E. W. Fay offers an etymology of the word “livid” which facilitates the passage from animal to man: “Lividus meant ‘licked.’ The word derives from an animal’s licking hurts and sores on the young. A mother of the human species still kisses (licks) a child’s hurt to make it well” (_Mod. Lang. Notes_, IX. 263). Who has not had his mother say: “Does it hurt? Come and let me kiss it, and make it well.”

Moreover, Reclus tells us, “There are Esquimaux who go further in their demonstrations of affection, and carrying their complaisance as far as Mamma Puss and Mamma Bruin, lick their babies to clean them, lick them well over from head to foot” (523. 38). Nor is it always the mother who thus acts. Mantegazza observes: “I even know a very affectionate child, who, without having learnt it from any one, licks the people to whom he wishes to show friendship” (499. 144).

 

Massage.

Che nasce bella nasce maritata,—“the girl born pretty is born married,”—says the Italian proverb, and many devices there are among primitive races to ensure the beauty which custom demands, but which nature has failed to provide.

Among the Songish Indians of British Columbia, there is a saying: Tôu ô‘wuna täns ksEtctcâ‘ai,—“as if no mother had made you look nice.” Doctor Boas describes the “making the child look nice” as follows (404.

20):—

 

“As soon as it is born, the mother rubs it from the mouth towards the ears, so as to press the cheek-bones somewhat upward. The outer corners of the eyes are pulled outward that they may not become round, which is considered ill-looking. The calves of the legs are pressed backward and upward, the knees are tied together to prevent the feet from turning inward, the forehead is pressed down.” Among the Nootka Indians, according to the same authority: “Immediately after birth, the eyebrows of the babe are pressed upward, its belly is pressed forward, and the calves of the legs are squeezed from the ankles upward. All these manipulations are believed to improve the appearance of the child. It is believed that the pressing of the eyebrows will give them the peculiar shape that may be noticed in all carvings of the Indians of the North Pacific Coast. The squeezing of the legs is intended to produce slim ankles” (404. 39).

The subject of the human physiognomy and physical characteristics in folk-lore and folk-speech is a very entertaining one, and the practices in vogue for beautifying these are legion and found all over the world

(204).

 

Face-Games.

Some recollection of such procedure as that of the Songish Indians seems to linger, perhaps, in the game, which Sicilian nurses play on the baby’s features. It consists in “lightly touching nose, mouth, eyes, etc., giving a caress or slap to the chin,” and repeating at the same time the verses:—

 

“Varvaruttedu Vucca d’aneddu, Nasu affilatu, Ocehi di stiddi Frunti quatrata E te ‘ccà ‘na timpulata.”

 

In French we have corresponding to this:—

 

“Beau front Petits yeux, Nez can can, Bouche d’argent, Menton fleuri, Chichirichi.”

 

In Scotch:—

 

“Chin cherry, Moo merry, Nose nappie, Ee winkie, Broo brinkie, Cock-up jinkie.”

 

In English:—

 

“Eye winker, Tom Tinker, Nose dropper, Mouth eater. Chin chopper.”

 

And cognate practices exist all over the globe (204. 21).

 

Primitive Weighing.

“Worth his weight in gold” is an expression which has behind it a long history of folk-thought. Professor Gaidoz, in his essay on Ransom by Weight (236), and Haberlandt, in his paper on the Tulâpurusha, Man-Weighing (248) of India, have shown to what extent has prevailed in Europe and Asia the giving of one’s weight in gold or other precious substances by prisoners to their captors, in order to secure their liberty, by devotees to the church, or to some saint, as a cure for, or a preventitive of disease, or as an act of charity or of gratitude for favours received.

The expression used of Belshazzar in Daniel v. 27, “Thou