The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought, Alexander F. Chamberlain [first color ebook reader .TXT] 📗

ago, went through some sort of ordeal when he first entered into active boyhood. Being triced up by legs and arms, and swung violently against a gate, was usually part of this ceremony, and it no doubt still exists, although I have no particular information, which indeed is rather difficult to obtain, as boys, while they remain boys, are reticent concerning all such matters”

(212. 236).

 

These street-organizations exist in other cities also, and have their ramifications in the school-life of children, who either belong to, or are in some way subject to, these curious associations. Every ward, nay, every street of any importance, seems to have its “gang,” and it is no small experience in a boy’s life to pass the ordeal of initiation, battle with alien organizations, and retire, as childhood recedes, unharmed by the primitive entourage.

No doubt, from these street-gangs many pass into the junior criminal societies which are known to exist in many great cities, the training-schools for theft, prostitution, murder, the feeding-grounds for the “White Caps,” “Molly Maguires,” “Ku-Klux,” “Mafia,” “Camorra,” and other secret political or criminal associations, who know but too well how to recruit their numbers from the young. The gentler side of the social instinct is seen in the formation of friendships among children, associations born of the nursery or the schoolroom which last often through life. The study of these early friendships offers a tempting field for sociological research and investigation.

 

Secret Societies of the Young.

There are among primitive peoples many secret societies to which children and youth are allowed to belong, or which are wholly composed of such.

Among the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, of British Columbia, Dr. Boas mentions the “Keki’qalak—( = the crows),” formed from the children (403. 53). The same author speaks of the Tsimshians, another British Columbia tribe, in these terms (403. 57):—

“A man who is not a member of a secret society is a ‘common man.’ He becomes a middle-class man after the first initiation, and attains higher rank by repeated initiations. The novice disappears in the same way as among the Kwakiutl. It is supposed that he goes to heaven. During the dancing season a feast is given, and while the women are dancing the novice is suddenly said to have disappeared. If he is a child, he stays away four days; youths remain absent six days, and grown-up persons several months. Chiefs are supposed to stay in heaven during the fall and entire winter. When this period has elapsed, they suddenly reappear on the beach, carried by an artificially-made monster belonging to their crest. Then all the members of the secret society to which the novice is to belong gather and walk down in grand procession to the beach to fetch the child. At this time the child’s parents bring presents, particularly elk skins, strung on a rope as long as the procession, to be given at a subsequent feast. The people surround the novice and lead him into every house in order to show that he has returned. Then he is taken to the house of his parents and a bunch of cedar-bark is fastened over the door, to show that the place is tabooed, and nobody is allowed to enter.” The dance and other ceremonies which follow may be read of in Dr. Boas’ report.

Dr. Daniels, in his study of Regeneration, has called attention to “seclusion” and “disappearance,” followed by reappearance and adoption as members of society, as characteristic practices in vogue among many savage and semi-civilized tribes with respect to children and those approaching the age of puberty—a change of name sometimes accompanies the “entering upon the new life,” as it is often called. Of the Australians we read: “The boy at eight or ten years of age must leave the hut of his father and live in common with the other young men of the tribe. He is called by another name than that which he has borne from birth and his diet is regulated to some extent.” In New Guinea, in Africa, and among some of the tribes of American aborigines like habits prevail. The custom of certain Indians formerly inhabiting Virginia is thus described: “After a very severe beating the boys are sent into a secluded spot. There they must stay nine months and can associate with no human being. They are fed during this time with a kind of intoxicating preparation of roots to make them forget all about their past life. After their return home everything must seem strange to them. In this way it is thought that they ‘begin to live anew.’ They are thought of as having been dead for a short time and are ‘numbered among the older citizens after forgetting that they once were boys’” (214.

11-13).

 

In the African district of Quoja existed a secret society called Belly-Paaro, “the members of which had to spend a long time in a holy thicket. Whoever broke the rules of this society was seized upon by the Jannanes, or spirits of the dead, who dwelt in the thicket and brought thither, whence he was unable to return” (127. I. 240). Of this practice Kulischer remarks: “‘It is a death and a new birth, since they are wholly changed in the consecrated thicket, dying to the old life and existence, and receiving a new understanding.’ When the youths return from the thicket, they act as if they had come into the world for the first time, and had never known where their parents lived or their names, what sort of people they were, how to wash themselves” (214. 12).

Of another part of Africa we read: “In the country of Ambamba each person must die once, and come to life again. Accordingly, when a fetich-priest shakes his calabash at a village, those men and youths whose hour is come fall into a state of death-like torpor, from which they recover usually in the course of three days. But if there is any one that the fetich loves, him he takes into the bush and buries in the fetich-house. Oftentimes he remains buried for a long series of years. When he comes to life again, he begins to eat and drink as before, but his reason is gone, and the fetich-man is obliged to train him and instruct him in the simplest bodily movements, like a little child. At first the stick is only the instrument of education, but gradually his senses come back to him, and he begins to speak. As soon as his education is finished, the priest restores him to his parents. They seldom recognize their son, but accept the express assurance of the feticero, who also reminds them of events in the past. In Ambamba a man who has not passed through the process of dying and coming to life again is held in contempt, nor is he permitted to join in the dance” (529.

56).

 

Some recollection, perhaps, of similar customs and ideas appears in the game of “Ruripsken,” which, according to Schambach, is played by children in Gottingen: One of the children lies on the ground, pretending to be dead, the others running up and singing out “Ruripsken, are you alive yet?” Suddenly he springs up and seizes one of the other players, who has to take his place, and so the game goes on.

Among the Mandingos of the coast of Sierra Leone, the girls approaching puberty are taken by the women of the village to an out-of-the-way spot in the forest, where they remain for a month and a day in strictest seclusion, no one being permitted to see them except the old woman who has charge of their circumcision. Here they are instructed in religion and ceremonial, and at the expiration of the time set, are brought back to town at night, and indulge in a sort of Lady Godiva procession until daybreak. At the beginning of the dry-cool season among the Mundombe “boys of from eight to ten years of age are brought by the ‘kilombola-masters’ into a lonely uninhabited spot, where they remain for ninety days after their circumcision, during which time not even their own parents may visit them. After the wound heals, they are brought back to the village in triumph” (127. 1. 292).

With the Kaffirs the circumcision-rites last five months, “and during this whole time the youths go around with their bodies smeared with white clay. They form a secret society, and dwell apart from the village in a house built specially for them” (127. I. 292). Among the Susu there is a secret organization known as the Semo, the members of which use a peculiar secret language, and “the young people have to pass a whole year in the forest, and it is believed right for them to kill any one who comes near the wood, and who is not acquainted with this secret tongue” (127. I. 240). A very similar society exists among the tribes on the Rio Nunez. Here “the young people live for seven or eight years a life of seclusion in the forest.” In Angoy there is the secret society of the Sindungo, membership in which passes from father to son; in Bomma, the secret orders of the fetich Undémbo; among the Shekiani and the Bakulai, that of the great spirit Mwetyi, the chief object of which is to keep in subjection women and children, and into which boys are initiated when between fourteen and eighteen years old; the Mumbo Jumbo society of the Mandingos, into which no one under sixteen years of age is allowed to enter (127. I. 241-247).

Among the Mpongwe the women have a secret society called Njembe, the object of which is to protect them against harsh treatment by the men. The initiation lasts several weeks, and girls from ten to twelve years of age are admissible (127. I. 245).

Of the Indians of the western plains of the United States of America we are told: “At twelve or thirteen these yearnings can no longer be suppressed; and, banded together, the youths of from twelve to sixteen years roam over the country; and some of the most cold-blooded atrocities, daring attacks, and desperate combats have been made by these children in pursuit of fame” (432. 191).

Among the Mandingos of West Africa, during the two months immediately following their circumcision, the youths “form a society called Solimana. They make visits to the neighbouring villages, where they sing and dance and are fèted by the inhabitants.”

In Angola the boys “live for a month under the care of a fetich-priest, passing their time in drum-beating, a wild sort of singing, and rat-hunting.” Among the Beit Bidel “all the youths who are to be consecrated as men unite together. They deck themselves out with beads, hire a guitar-player, and retire to the woods, where they steal and kill goats from the herds of their tribe, and for a whole week amuse themselves with sport and song. The Wanika youths of like age betake themselves, wholly naked, to the woods, where they remain until they have slain a man.” On the coast of Guinea, after their circumcision, “boys are allowed to exact presents from every one and to commit all sorts of excesses” (127. 1.291-4).

“Among the Fulas, boys who have been circumcised are a law unto themselves until the incision has healed. They can steal or take whatever suits them without its being counted an offence. In Bambuk, for fourteen days after the circumcision-fête, the young people are allowed to escape from the supervision of their parents. From sunrise to sunset they can leave the paternal roof and run about the fields near the village. They can demand meat and drink of whomsoever they please, but may not enter a house unless they have been invited to do so.” In Darfur, “after their