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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
THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD
IN FOLK-THOUGHT
(THE CHILD IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE)
BY
ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN
M.A., PH.D.
TO
HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER
THEIR SON
Dedicates this Book
"Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur,
Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren;
Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur
Und Lust zu fabulieren."--_Goethe_.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The present volume is an elaboration and amplification of lectures on
"The Child in Folk-Thought," delivered by the writer at the summer
school held at Clark University in 1894. In connection with the
interesting topic of "Child-Study" which now engages so much the
attention of teachers and parents, an attempt is here made to indicate
some of the chief child-activities among primitive peoples and to point
out in some respects their survivals in the social institutions and
culture-movements of to-day. The point of view to be kept in mind is the
child and what he has done, or is said to have done, in all ages and
among all races of men.
For all statements and citations references are given, and the writer
has made every effort to place himself in the position of those whose
opinion he records,--receiving and reporting without distortion or
alteration.
He begs to return to his colleagues in the University, especially to its
distinguished president, the _genius_ of the movement for
"Child-Study" in America, and to the members of the summer school of
1894, whose kind appreciation of his efforts has mainly led to the
publication of this work, his sincerest gratitude for the sympathy and
encouragement which they have so often exhibited and expressed with
regard to the present and allied subjects of study and investigation in
the field of Anthropology, pedagogical and psychological.
A. F. CHAMBERLAIN
CLARK UNIVERSITY,
WORCESTER, Mass., April, 1895.
CONTENTS.
I. CHILD-STUDY
II. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER
III. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER (Continued)
IV. THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE FATHER
V. THE NAME CHILD
VI. THE CHILD IN THE PRIMITIVE LABORATORY
VII. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF CHILD-LIFE: PARENTAL AFFECTION
VIII. CHILDHOOD THE GOLDEN AGE
IX. CHILDREN'S FOOD
X. CHILDREN'S SOULS
XI. CHILDREN'S FLOWERS, PLANTS, AND TREES
XII. CHILDREN'S ANIMALS, BIRDS, ETC.
XIII. CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL
XIV. THE CHILD AS MEMBER AND BUILDER OF SOCIETY
XV. THE CHILD AS LINGUIST
XVI. THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR
XVII. THE CHILD AS POET AND MUSICIAN
XVIII. THE CHILD AS TEACHER AND WISEACRE
XIX. THE CHILD AS JUDGE
XX. THE CHILD AS ORACLE-KEEPER AND ORACLE-INTERPRETER
XXI. THE CHILD AS WEATHER-MAKER
XXII. THE CHILD AS HEALER AND PHYSICIAN
XXIII. THE CHILD AS SHAMAN AND PRIEST
XXIV. THE CHILD AS HERO, ADVENTURER, ETC.
XXV. THE CHILD AS FETICH AND DIVINITY
XXVI. THE CHILD AS GOD: THE CHRIST-CHILD
XXVII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT PARENTS, FATHER AND MOTHER
XXVIII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD, MANKIND, GENIUS
XXIX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT MOTHER AND CHILD
XXX. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT FATHER AND CHILD
XXXI. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND AGE
XXXII. PROVERBS, SAYINGS, ETC., ABOUT THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD
INDEX TO PROVERBS
XXXIII. CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUBJECT-INDEX TO SECTION A OF BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUBJECT-INDEX TO SECTION B OF BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX I.--AUTHORITIES
INDEX II.--PLACES, PEOPLES, TRIBES, LANGUAGES
INDEX III.--SUBJECTS
CHAPTER I.
CHILD-STUDY.
Oneness with Nature is the glory of Childhood;
oneness with Childhood is the
glory of the Teacher.--_G. Stanley Hall_.
Homes ont l'estre comme metaulx,
Vie et augment des vegetaulx,
Instinct et sens comme les bruts,
Esprit comme anges en attributs.
[Man has as attributes: Being like metals,
Life and growth like plants,
Instinct and sense like animals,
Mind like angels.]--_Jehan de Meung_.
The Child is Father of the Man.--_Wordsworth_.
And he [Jesus] called to him a little child, and set him in the midst
of them.--_Matthew_ xviii. 2.
It was an Oriental poet who sang:--
"On parent knees, a naked, new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st, while all around thee smiled;
So live, that, sinking in thy last, long sleep,
Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep,"
and not so very long ago even the anthropologist seemed satisfied with
the approximation of childhood and old age,--one glance at the babe in
the cradle, one look at the graybeard on his deathbed, gave all the
knowledge desired or sought for. Man, big, burly, healthy, omniscient,
was the subject of all investigation. But now a change has come over the
face of things. As did that great teacher of old, so, in our day, has
one of the ministers of science "called to him a little child and set
him in the midst of them,"--greatest in the kingdom of anthropology is
assuredly that little child, as we were told centuries ago, by the
prophet of Galilee, that he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The
child, together with woman, who, in so many respects in which the
essential human characteristics are concerned, so much resembles him, is
now beyond doubt the most prominent figure in individual, as well as in
racial, anthropology. Dr. D. G. Brinton, in an appreciative notice of
the recent volume on _Man and Woman_, by Havelock Ellis, in which
the secondary sexual differences between the male and the female
portions of the human race are so well set forth and discussed, remarks:
"The child, the infant in fact, alone possesses in their fulness 'the
chief distinctive characters of humanity. The highest human types, as
represented in men of genius, present a striking approximation to the
child-type. In man, from about the third year onward, further growth is
to some extent growth in degeneration and senility.' Hence the true
tendency of the progressive evolution of the race is to become
child-like, to become feminine." (_Psych. Rev._ I. 533.)
As Dr. Brinton notes, in this sense women are leading evolution--Goethe
was right: _Das Ewig-weibliche zieht uns hinan_. But here belongs
also the child-human, and he was right in very truth who said: "A little
child shall lead them." What new meaning flashes into the words of the
Christ, who, after declaring that "the kingdom of God cometh not with
observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the
kingdom of God is within you," in rebuke of the Pharisees, in rebuke of
his own disciples, "called to him a little child and set him in the
midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and
become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of
heaven." Even physically, the key to the kingdom of heaven lies in
childhood's keeping.
Vast indeed is now the province of him who studies the child. In
Somatology,--the science of the physical characteristics and
constitution of the body and its members,--he seeks not alone to observe
the state and condition of the skeleton and its integuments during life,
but also to ascertain their nature and character in the period of
prenatal existence, as well as when causes natural, or unnatural,
disease, the exhaustion of old age, violence, or the like, have induced
the dissolution of death.
In Linguistics and Philology, he endeavours to discover the essence and
import of those manifold, inarticulate, or unintelligible sounds, which,
with the long flight of time, develop into the splendidly rounded
periods of a Webster or a Gladstone, or swell nobly in the rhythmic
beauties of a Swinburne or a Tennyson.
In Art and Technology, he would fain fathom the depths of those rude
scribblings and quaint efforts at delineation, whence, in the course of
ages, have been evolved the wonders of the alphabet and the marvellous
creations of a Rubens and an Angelo.
In Psychology, he seeks to trace, in childish prattlings and lore of the
nursery, the far-off beginnings of mythology, philosophy, religion.
Beside the stories told to children in explanation of the birth of a
sister or a brother, and the children's own imaginings concerning the
little new-comer, he may place the speculations of sages and theologians
of all races and of all ages concerning birth, death, immortality, and
the future life, which, growing with the centuries, have ripened into
the rich and wholesome dogmas of the church.
Ethnology, with its broad sweep over ages and races of men, its
searchings into the origins of nations and of civilizations, illumined
by the light of Evolution, suggests that in the growth of the child from
helpless infancy to adolescence, and through the strong and trying
development of manhood to the idiosyncrasies of disease and senescence,
we have an epitome in miniature of the life of the race; that in
primitive tribes, and in those members of our civilized communities,
whose growth upward and onward has been retarded by inherited tendencies
which it has been out of their power to overcome, or by a _milieu_
and environment, the control and subjugation of which required faculties
and abilities they did not possess, we see, as it were, ethnic children;
that in the nursery, the asylum, the jail, the mountain fastnesses of
earth, or the desert plains, peopled by races whose ways are not our
ways, whose criteria of culture are far below ours, we have a panorama
of what has transpired since, alone and face to face with a new
existence, the first human beings partook of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge and became conscious of the great gulf, which, after
millenniums of struggle and fierce competition, had opened between the
new, intelligent, speaking anthropoids and their fellows who straggled
so far behind.
Wordsworth has said: "The child is father of the man," and a German
writer has expanded the same thought:--
"Die Kindheit von heute
Ist die Menschheit von morgen,
Die Kindheit von heute
Ist die Menschheit von gestern."
["The childhood of to-day
Is the manhood of to-morrow,
The childhood of to-day
Is the manhood of yesterday."]
In brief, the child is father of the man and brother of the race.
In all ages, and with every people, the arcana of life and death, the
mysteries of birth, childhood, puberty, adolescence, maidenhood,
womanhood, manhood, motherhood, fatherhood, have called forth the
profoundest thought and speculation. From the contemplation of these
strange phenomena sprang the esoteric doctrines of Egypt and the East,
with their horrible accompaniments of vice and depravity; the same
thoughts, low and terrible, hovered before the devotees of Moloch and
Cybele, when Carthage sent her innocent boys to the furnace, a sacrifice
to the king of gods, and Asia Minor offered up the virginity of her
fairest daughters to the first-comer at the altars of the earth-mother.
Purified and ennobled by long centuries of development and unfolding,
the blossoming of such conceptions is seen in the great sacrifice which
the Son of Man made for the children of men, and in the cardinal
doctrine of the religion which he founded,--"Ye must be born
again,"--the regeneration, which alone gave entrance into Paradise.
The Golden Age of the past of which, through the long lapse of years,
dreamers have dreamt and poets sung, and the Golden City, glimpses of
whose glorious portal have flashed through the prayers and meditations
of the rapt enthusiast, seem but one in their foundation, as the Eden of
the world's beginning and the heaven that shall open to men's eyes, when
time shall be no more, are but closely allied phases, nay, but one and
the same phase, rather, of the world-old thought,--the ethnic might have
been, the ought to be of all the ages. The imagined, retrospect
childhood of the past is twin-born with the ideal, prospective childhood
of the world to come. Here the savage and the philosopher, the child and
the genius, meet; the wisdom of the first and of the last century of
human existence is at one. Childhood is the mirror in which these
reflections are cast,--the childhood of the race is depicted with the
same colours as the childhood of the individual. We can read a larger
thought into the words of Hartley Coleridge:--
"Oh what a wilderness were this sad world,
If man were always man, and never child."
Besides the anthropometric and psycho-physical investigations of the
child carried on in the scientific laboratory with exact instruments and
unexceptionable methods, there is another field of "Child-Study" well
worthy our attention for the light it can shed upon some of the dark
places in the wide expanse of pedagogical science and the art of
education.
Its laboratory of research has been the whole wide world, the
experimenters and recorders the primitive peoples of all races and all
centuries,--fathers and mothers whom the wonderland of parenthood
encompassed and entranced; the subjects, the children of all the
generations of mankind.
The consideration of "The Child in Folk-Thought,"--what tribe upon
tribe, age after age, has thought about, ascribed to, dreamt of, learned
from, taught to, the child, the parent-lore of the human race, in its
development through savagery and barbarism to civilization and
culture,--can bring to the harvest of pedagogy many a golden sheaf.
The works of Dr. Ploss, _Das kleine Kind_, _Das Kind_, and
_Das Weib_, encyclopadic in character as the two last are, covering
a vast field of research relating to the anatomy, physiology, hygiene,
dietetics, and ceremonial treatment of child and mother, of girl and
boy, all over the world, and forming a huge mine of information
concerning child-birth, motherhood, sex-phenomena, and the like, have
still left some aspects of the anthropology of childhood practically
untouched. In English, the child has, as yet, found no chronicler and
historian such as Ploss. The object of the present writer is to treat of
the child from a point of view hitherto entirely neglected, to exhibit
what the world owes to childhood and the motherhood and the fatherhood
which it occasions, to indicate the position of the child in the march
of civilization among the various races of men, and to estimate the
influence which the child-idea and its accompaniments have had upon
sociology, mythology, religion, language; for the touch of the child is
upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not
yet been told. They have figured in the world's history and its
folk-lore as _magi_ and "medicine-men," as priests and
oracle-keepers, as physicians and healers, as teachers and judges, as
saints, heroes, discoverers, and inventors, as musicians and poets,
actors and labourers in many fields of human activity, have been
compared to the foolish and to the most wise, have been looked upon as
fetiches and as gods, as the fit sacrifice to offended Heaven, and as
the saviours and regenerators of mankind. The history of the child in
human society and of the human ideas and institutions which have sprung
from its consideration can have here only a beginning. This book is
written in full sympathy with the thought expressed in the words of the
Latin poet Juvenal: _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia_, and in the
declaration of Jean Paul: "I love God and every little child."
CHAPTER II.
THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER.
A good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.--_English Proverb_.
The first poet, the first priest, was the first mother.
The first empire was a woman and her children.--_O. T. Mason_.
When society, under the guidance of the "fathers of the church," went
almost to destruction in the dark ages, it was the "mothers of the
people" who saved it and set it going on the new right path.
--_Zmigrodski_ (adapted).
The story of civilization is the story of the mother.
--_Zmigrodski_.
One mother is more venerable than a thousand fathers.
--_Laws of Manu_.
If the world were put into one scale, and my mother into the other, the
world would kick the beam.--_Lord Langdale_.
_Names of the Mother_.
In _A Song of Life_,--a book in which the topic of sex is treated
with such delicate skill,--occurs this sentence: "The motherhood of
mammalian life is the most sacred thing in physical existence" (120.
92), and Professor Drummond closes his _Lowell Institute Lectures on
the Evolution of Man_ in the following words: "It is a fact to which
too little significance has been given, that the whole work of organic
nature culminates in the making of Mothers--that the animal series end
with a group which even the naturalist has been forced to call the
_Mammalia_. When the savage mother awoke to her first tenderness, a
new creative hand was at work in the world" (36. 240). Said Henry Ward
Beecher: "When God thought of Mother, he must have laughed with
satisfaction, and framed it quickly,--so rich, so deep, so divine, so
full of soul, power, and beauty, was the conception," and it was unto
babes and sucklings that this wisdom was first revealed. From their lips
first fell the sound which parents of later ages consecrated and
preserved to all time. With motherhood came into the world song,
religion, the thought of immortality itself; and the mother and the
child, in the course of the ages, invented and preserved most of the
arts and the graces of human life and human culture. In language,
especially, the mother and the child have exercised a vast influence. In
the names for "mother," the various races have recognized the debt they
owe to her who is the "fashioner" of the child, its "nourisher" and its
"nurse." An examination of the etymologies of the words for "mother" in
all known languages is obviously impossible, for the last speakers and
interpreters of many of the unwritten tongues of the earth are long
since dead and gone. How primitive man--the first man of the
race--called his mother, we can but surmise. Still, a number of
interesting facts are known, and some of these follow.
The word _mother_ is one of the oldest in the language; one of the
very few words found among all the great branches of the widely
scattered Aryan race, bearing witness, in ages far remote, before the
Celt, the Teuton, the Hellene, the Latin, the Slav, and the Indo-Iranian
were known, to the existence of the family, with the _mother_
occupying a high and honourable place, if not indeed the highest place
of all. What the etymological meaning was, of the primitive Aryan word
from which our _mother_ is descended, is uncertain. It seems,
however, to be a noun derived, with the agent-suffix _-t-r_, from
the root _ma_, "to measure." Skeat thinks the word meant originally
"manager, regulator [of the household]," rejecting, as unsupported by
sufficient evidence, a suggested interpretation as the "producer."
Kluge, the German lexicographer, hesitates between the "apportioner,
measurer," and the "former [of the embryo in the womb]." In the language
of the Klamath Indians of Oregon, _p'gishap_, "mother," really
signifies the "maker."
The Karankawas of Texas called "mother," _kaninma_, the "suckler,"
from _kanin_, "the female breast." In Latin _mamma_, seems to
signify "teat, breast," as well as "mother," but Skeat doubts whether
there are not two distinct words here. In Finnish and some other
primitive languages a similar resemblance or identity exists between the
words for "breast" and "mother." In Lithuanian, _mote_--cognate
with our _mother_--signifies "wife," and in the language of the
Caddo Indians of Louisiana and Texas _sassin_ means both "wife" and
"mother." The familiar "mother" of the New England farmer of the "Old
Homestead" type, presents, perhaps, a relic of the same thought. The
word _dame_, in older English, from being a title of respect for
women--there is a close analogy in the history of _sire_--came to
signify "mother." Chaucer translates the French of the _Romaunt of the
Rose_, "Enfant qui craint ni pere ni mere Ne pent que bien ne le
comperre," by "For who that dredeth sire ne dame Shall it abie in bodie
or name," and Shakespeare makes poor Caliban declare: "I never saw a
woman, But only Sycorax, my dam." Nowadays, the word _dam_ is
applied only to the female parent of animals, horses especially. The
word, which is one with the honourable appellation _dame_, goes
back to the Latin _domina_, "mistress, lady," the feminine of
_dominus_, "lord, master." In not a few languages, the words for
"father" and "mother" are derived from the same root, or one from the
other, by simple phonetic change. Thus, in the Sandeh language of
Central Africa, "mother" is _n-amu_, "father," _b-amu_; in the
Cholona of South America, _pa_ is "father," _pa-n_, "mother";
in the PEntlate of British Columbia, "father" is _maa_, "mother,"
_taa_, while in the Songish _man_ is "father" and _tan_
"mother" (404. 143).
Certain tongues have different words for "mother," according as it is a
male or a female who speaks. Thus in the Okanak.en, a Salish dialect of
British Columbia, a man or a boy says for "mother," _sk'oi_, a
woman or a girl, _tom_; in Kalispelm the corresponding terms for
"my mother" are _isk'oi_ and _intoop_. This distinction,
however, seems not to be so common as in the case of "father."
In a number of languages the words for "mother" are different when the
latter is addressed and when she is spoken of or referred to. Thus in
the Kwakiutl, Nootka, and Catloltq, three British Columbia tongues, the
two words for "mother" are respectively _at_, _abouk_;
_at_, _abEmp_; _nikH_, _tan_. It is to be noted,
apparently, that the word used in address is very often simpler, more
primitive, than the other. Even in English we find something similar in
the use of _ma_ (or _mama_) and _mother_.
In the Gothic alone, of all the great Teutonic dialects,--the language
into which Bishop Wulfila translated the Scriptures in the fourth
century,--the cognate equivalent of our English _mother_ does not
appear. The Gothic term is _aithiei,_ evidently related to
_atta,_ "father," and belonging to the great series of nursery
words, of which our own _ma, mama,_ are typical examples. These are
either relics of the first articulations of the child and the race,
transmitted by hereditary adaptation from generation to generation, or
are the coinages of mother and nurse in imitation of the cries of
infancy.
These simple words are legion in number and are found over the whole
inhabited earth,--in the wigwam of the Redskin, in the tent of the nomad
Bedouin, in the homes of cultured Europeans and Americans. Dr. Buschmann
studied these "nature-sounds," as he called them, and found that they
are chiefly variations and combinations of the syllables _ab, ap, am,
an, ad, at, ba, pa, ma, na, da, ta,_ etc., and that in one language,
not absolutely unrelated to another, the same sound will be used to
denote the "mother" that in the second signifies "father," thus
evidencing the applicability of these words, in the earliest stages of
their existence, to either, or to both, of the parents of the child
(166. 85). Pott, while remarking a wonderful resemblance in the names
for parents all over the world, seeks to establish the rather doubtful
thesis that there is a decided difference in the nature of the words for
"father" and those for "mother," the former being "man-like, stronger,"
the latter "woman-like, mild" (517. 57).
Some languages apparently do not possess a single specialized word for
"mother." The Hawaiian, for example, calls "mother and the sisters of
the mother" _makua wahine,_ "female parent," that being the nearest
equivalent of our "mother," while in Tonga, as indeed with us to-day,
sometimes the same term is applied to a real mother and to an adopted
one (100. 389). In Japan, the paternal aunt and the maternal aunt are
called "little mother." Similar terms and appellations are found in
other primitive tongues. A somewhat extended discussion of names for
"mother," and the questions connected with the subject, will be found in
Westermarck (166. 85). Here also will be found notices of the names
among various peoples for the nearest relatives of the mother and
father. Incidentally it is worth noting that Westermarck controverts
Professor Vambery's opinion that the Turko-Tartar words for "mother,"
_ana_, _ene_, originally meant "nurse" or "woman" (from the
root _an_, _en_), holding that exactly the reverse is the
fact, "the terms for _mother_ being the primitive words." He is
also inclined to think that the Aryan roots _pa_, "to protect, to
nourish," and _ma_, "to fashion," came from _pa_, "father,"
and _ma_, "mother," and not _vice versa_. Mr. Bridges, the
missionary who has studied so well the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,
states that "the names _imu_ and _dabi_--father and
mother--have no meaning apart from their application, neither have any
of their other very definite and ample list of terms for relatives,
except the terms _macu_ [cf. _magu_, "parturition"] and
_macipa_ [cf. _cipa_, "female"], son and daughter." This
statement is, however, too sweeping perhaps (166. 88).
According to Colonel Mallery, the Ute Indians indicate "mother" by
placing the index finger in the mouth (497a. 479). Clark describes the
common Indian sign as follows: "Bring partially curved and compressed
right hand, and strike with two or three gentle taps right or left
breast, and make sign for _female_; though in conversation the
latter is seldom necessary. Deaf mutes make sign for _female_, and
cross hands as in their sign for _baby_, and move them to front and
upwards" (420. 262). Somewhat similar is the sign for "father": "Bring
the compressed right hand, back nearly outwards, in front of right or
left breast, tips of fingers few inches from it; move the hand, mostly
by wrist action, and gently tap the breast with tips of fingers two or
three times, then make sign for _male_. Some Indians tap right
breast for 'father,' and left for 'mother.' Deaf-mutes make sign for
_male_, and then holding hands fixed as in their sign for
_baby_, but a little higher, move the hands to front and upwards"
(420. 167).
Interesting is the following statement of Mr. Codrington, the well-known
missionary to the Melanesians:--
"In Mota the word used for 'mother' is the same that is used for the
division [tribe?] _veve_, with a plural sign _ra veve_. And it
is not that a man's kindred are so called after his mother, but that his
mother is called his kindred, as if she were the representative of the
division to which he belongs; as if he were not the child of a
particular woman, but of the whole kindred for whom she brought him into
the world." Moreover, at Mota, in like fashion, "the word for 'consort,'
'husband,' or 'wife,' is in a plural form _ra soai_, the word used
for members of a body, or the component parts of a canoe" (25. 307-8).
_Mother-Right_.
Since the appearance of Bachofen's famous book on the matriarchate,
"mother-right," that system of society in which the mother is paramount
in the family and the line of inheritance passes through her, has
received much attention from students of sociology and primitive
history.
Post thus defines the system of mother-right:--
"The matriarchate is a system of relationship according to which the
child is related only to his mother and to the persons connected with
him through the female line, while he is looked upon as not related to
his father and the persons connected with him through the male line.
According to this system, therefore, the narrowest family circle
consists not, as with us to-day, of father, mother, and child, but of
mother, mother's brother, and sister's child, whilst the father is
completely wanting, and the mother's brother takes the father's place
with the sister's children. The real father is not the father of his own
children, but of his nephews and nieces, whilst the brother of his wife
is looked upon as father to his children. The brothers and sisters of
the mother form with her a social group, to which belong also the
children of the sisters, the children of the daughters of the sisters,
etc., but not the children of the brothers, the children of the sisters'
sons, etc. With every husband the relationship ceases" (127. I. 13-14).
The system of mother-right prevails widely over the whole globe; in some
places, however, only in fragmentary condition. It is found amongst
nearly all the native tribes of America; the peoples of Malaysia,
Melanesia, Australia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the Dravidian tribes of
India; in Africa it is found in the eastern Sahara, the Soudan, the east
and west coast, and in the centre of the continent, but not to the
exclusion, altogether, of father-right, while in the north the intrusion
of Europeans and the followers of Islam has tended to suppress it.
Traces of its former existence are discovered among certain of the
ancient tribes of Asia Minor, the old Egyptians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans,
Teutons, the Aryans of India, the Chinese, Japanese, etc.
Mother-right has been recognized by many sociologists as a system of
family relationship, perhaps the most widespread, perhaps the most
primitive of all. Dr. Brinton says:--
"The foundation of the gentile system, as of any other family life, is
... the mutual affection between kindred. In the primitive period this
is especially between children of the same mother, not so much because
of the doubt of paternity, as because physiologically and obviously, it
is the mother in whom is formed, and from whom alone proceeds, the
living being" (412. 47).
Professor O. T. Mason, in the course of his interesting address on
"Woman's Share in Primitive Culture," remarks (112. 10):--
"Such sociologists as Morgan and McLennan affirm that the primitive
society had no family organization at all. They hypothecate a condition
in which utter promiscuity prevailed. I see no necessity for this. There
is some organization among insects. Birds mate and rear a little family.
Many animals set up a kind of patriarchal horde. On the other hand, they
err greatly who look among savages for such permanent home life as we
enjoy. Marriages are in groups, children are the sons and daughters of
these groups; divorces are common. The fathers of the children are not
known, and if they were, they would have no authority on that account.
The mother never changes her name, the children are named after her, or,
at least, are not named after the father. The system of gentes prevails,
each gens consisting of a hypothetical female ancestress, and all her
descendants through females. These primitive men and women, having no
other resort, hit upon this device to hold a band of kin together. Here
was the first social tie on earth; the beginning of the state. The first
empire was a woman and her children, regardless of paternity. This was
the beginning of all the social bonds which unite us. Among our own
Indians mother-right was nearly universal. Upon the death of a chief
whose office was hereditary, he was succeeded, not by his son, but by
the son of a sister, or an aunt, or a niece; all his property that was
not buried with him fell to the same parties, could not descend to his
children, since a child and the father belonged to different gentes."
McLennan has discussed at some length the subject of kinship in ancient
Greece (115. 193-246), and maintains that "the system of double kinship,
which prevailed in the time of Homer, was preceded by a system of
kinship through females only," referring to the cases of Lycaon,
Tlepolemus, Helen, Arnaeus, Glaucus, and Sarpedon, besides the evidence
in the _Orestes_ of Euripides, and the _Eumenides_ of
Aeschylus. In the last, "the jury are equally divided on the plea [that
Orestes was not of kin to his mother, Clytemnestra, whom he had killed,
--"Do you call _me_ related by blood to my mother?"], and Orestes
gains his cause by the casting vote of Athene." According to tradition,
"in Greece, before the time of Cecrops, children always bore the name of
their mothers," in marked contrast to tha state of affairs in Sparta,
where, according to Philo, "the marriage tie was so loose that men lent
their wives to one another, and cared little by whom children were
begotten, provided they turned out strong and healthy."
We have preserved for us, by Plutarch and others, some of the opinions
of Greek philosophers on the relation of the father and the mother to
the child. Plato is represented as calling "mind the conception, idea,
model, and _father_; and matter the mother, _nurse_, or seat
and region capable of births." Chrysippus is said to have stated: "The
foetus is nourished in the womb like a plant; but, being born, is
refrigerated and hardened by the air, and its spirit being changed it
becomes an animal," a view which, as McLennan points out, "constitutes
the mother the mere nurse of her child, just as a field is of the seed
sown in it."
The view of Apollo, which, in the council of the gods, influenced Athene
to decide for Orestes, is this:--
"The bearer of the so-called offspring is not _the mother_ of it,
but only the nurse of the newly conceived foetus. It is the male who is
the author of its being; while she, as a stranger, for a stranger,
preserves the young plant for those for whom the god has not blighted it
in the bud. And I will show you a proof of this assertion; one
_may_ become a father without a mother. There stands by a witness
of this in the daughter of Olympian Zeus, who was not even nursed [much
less engendered or begotten] in the darkness of the womb" (115. 211).
"This is akin to the wild discussion in the misogynistic Middle Ages
about the possibility of _lucina sine concubitu_. The most recent
and most scholarly discussion of all questions involved in
"mother-right" will be found people in the world; for it stands on
record that the five companies (five hundred men) recruited from the
Iroquois of New York and Canada during our civil war stood first on the
list among all the recruits of our army for height, vigour, and
corporeal symmetry" (412. 82). And it was this people too who produced
Hiawatha, a philosophic legislator and reformer, worthy to rank with
Solon and Lycurgus, and the founder of a great league whose object was
to put an end to war, and unite all the nations in one bond of
brotherhood and peace.
Among the Choctaw-Muskogee tribes, women-chiefs were also known; the
Yuchis, Chetimachas, had "Queens"; occasionally we find female rulers
elsewhere in America, as among the Winnebagos, the Nah-ane, etc.
Scattered examples of gynocracy are to be found in other parts of the
world, and in their later development some of the Aryan races have been
rather partial to women as monarchs, and striking instances of a like
predilection are to be met with among the Semitic tribes,--Boadicea,
Dido, Semiramis, Deborah are well-known cases in point, to say nothing
of the Christian era and its more enlightened treatment of woman.
The fate of women among those peoples and in those ages where extreme
exaltation of the male has been the rule, is sketched by Letourneau in
his chapter on _The Condition of Women_ (100. 173-185); the
contrast between the Australians, to whom "woman is a domestic animal,
useful for the purposes of genesic pleasure, for reproduction, and, in
case of famine, for food," the Chinese, who can say "a newly-married
woman ought to be merely as a shadow and as an echo in the house," the
primitive Hindus, who forbade the wife to call her husband by name, but
made her term him "master, lord," or even "god," and even some of our
modern races in the eye of whose law women are still minors, and the
Iroquois, is remarkable. Such great differences in the position and
rights of women, existing through centuries, over wide areas of the
globe, have made the study of comparative pedagogy a most important
branch of human sociology. The mother as teacher has not been, and is
not now, the same the world over.
As men holding supreme power have been termed "father," women have in
like manner been called "mother." The title of the queen-mother in
Ashanti is _nana,_ "Grandmother" (438. 259), and to some of the
Indian tribes of Canada Queen Victoria is the "Great White Mother," the
"Great Mother across the Sea." In Ashanti the "rich, prosperous, and
powerful" are termed _oman enna,_ "mothers of the tribe," and are
expected to make suitably large offerings to the dead, else there will
be no child born in the neglectful family for a certain period (438.
228).
With the Romans, _mater_ and its derivative _matrona,_ came to
be applied as titles of honour; and beside the rites of the
_parentalia_ we find those of the _matronalia_ (492. 454).
In the ancient Hebrew chronicles we find mention of Deborah, that
"mother in Israel."
With us, off whose tongues "the fathers," "forefathers," "ancestors"
(hardly including ancestresses) and the like rolled so glibly, the
"Pilgrim Fathers" were glorified long before the "Pilgrim Mothers," and
hardly yet has the mother of the "father of his country" received the
just remembrance and recognition belonging to her who bore so noble and
so illustrious a son. By and by, however, it is to be hoped, we shall be
free from the reproach cast upon us by Colonel Higginson, and wake up to
the full consciousness that the great men of our land have had mothers,
and proceed to re-write our biographical dictionaries and encyclopadias
of life-history.
In Latin _mater,_ as does _mother_ with us, possessed a wide
extent of meaning, "mother, parent, producer, nurse, preparer, cause,
origin, source," etc. _Mater omnium artium necessitas,_ "Necessity
is the mother of invention," and similar phrases were in common use, as
they are also in the languages of to-day. Connected with _mater_ is
_materia,_ "matter,"--_mother_-stuff, perhaps,--and from it
is derived _matrimonium,_ which testifies concerning primitive
Roman sociology, in which the mother-idea must have been prominent,
something we cannot say of our word _marriage,_ derived ultimately
from the Latin _mas,_ "a male."
Westermarck notes the Nicaraguans, Dyaks, Minahassers, Andaman
Islanders, Padam, Munda Kols, Santals, Moors of the Western Soudan,
Tuaregs, Teda, among the more or less primitive peoples with whom woman
is held in considerable respect, and sometimes, as among the Munda Kols,
bears the proud title "mistress of the house" (166. 500, 501). As
Havelock Ellis remarks, women have shown themselves the equals of men as
rulers, and most beneficial results have flowed from their exercise of
the great political wisdom, and adaptation to statecraft which seems to
belong especially to the female sex. The household has been a
training-school for women in the more extended spheres of human
administrative society.
_Alma Mater._
The college graduate fondly calls the institution from which he has
obtained his degree _Alma Mater_, "nourishing, fostering,
cherishing mother," and he is her _alumnus_ (foster-child,
nourished one). For long years the family of the benign and gracious
mother, whose wisdom was lavished upon her children, consisted of sons
alone, but now, with the advent of "sweeter manners, purer laws,"
daughters have come to her also, and the _alumnae_, "the sweet
girl-graduates in their golden hair," share in the best gifts their
parent can bestow. To Earth also, the term _Alma Mater_ has been
applied, and the great nourishing mother of all was indeed the first
teacher of man, the first university of the race.
_Alma, alumnus, alumna_, are all derived from _alo_, "I
nourish, support." From the radical _al_, following various trains
of thought, have come: _alesco_, "I grow up"; _coalesco_, "I
grow together"; _adolesco_, "I grow up,"--whence _adolescent_,
etc.; _obsolesco_, "I wear out"; _alimentum_, "food";
_alimonium_, "support"; _altor, altrix_, "nourisher";
_altus_, "high, deep" (literally, "grown"); _elementum_,
"first principle," etc. Connected With _adolesco_ is
_adultus_, whence our _adult_, with the radical of which the
English word _old_ (_eld_) is cognate. From the root
_al_, "to grow, to make to grow, to nourish," spring also the Latin
words _proles_, "offspring," _suboles_, "offspring, sprout,"
_indoles_, "inborn or native quality."
_"Mother's Son."_
The familiar expression "every mother's son of us" finds kin in the
Modern High German _Muttersohn, Mutterkind_, which, with the even
more significant _Muttermensch_ (human being), takes us back to the
days of "mother-right." Rather different, however, is the idea called up
by the corresponding Middle Low German _modersone_, which means
"bastard, illegitimate child."
_Lore of Motherhood_
A synonym of _Muttermensch_ is _Mutterseele_, for soul and man
once meant pretty much, the same. The curious expression
_mutterseelenallein_, "quite alone; alone by one's self," is given
a peculiar interpretation by Lippert, who sees in it a relic of the
burial of the dead (soul) beneath the hearth, threshold, or floor of the
house; "wessen Mutter im Hause ruht, der kann daheim immer nur mit
seiner Mutterseele selbander allein sein." Or, perhaps, it goes back to
the time when, as with the Seminoles of Florida, the babe was held over
the mouth of the mother, whose death resulted from its birth, in order
that her departing spirit might enter the new being.
In German, the "mother-feeling" makes its influence felt in the
nomenclature of the lower brute creation. As contrasted with our English
female donkey (she-donkey), mare, ewe, ewe-lamb, sow, doe-hare (female
hare), queen-bee, etc., we find _Mutteresel_, "mother-donkey ";
_Mutterpferd_, "mother-horse"; _Mutterschaf_, "mother-sheep";
_Mutterlamm_, "mother lamb"; _Mutterschwein_, "mother swine";
_Mutterhase_, "mother-hare"; _Mutterbiene_, "mother-bee."
Nor is this feeling absent from the names of plants and things
inanimate. We have _Mutterbirke_, "birch"; _Mutterblume_,
"seed-flower"; _Mutternelke_, "carnation"; _Mutternagelein_
(our "mother-clove"); _Mutterholz_. In English we have "mother of
thyme," etc. In Japan a triple arrangement in the display of the
flower-vase--a floral trinity--is termed _chichi_, "father";
_haha_, "mother"; _ten_, "heaven" (189. 74).
In the nursery-lore of all peoples, as we can see from the fairy-tales
and child-stories in our own and other languages, this attribution of
motherhood to all things animate and inanimate is common, as it is in
the folk-lore and mythology of the adult members of primitive races now
existing.
_Mother Poet._
The arts of poetry, music, dancing, according to classic mythology, were
presided over by nine goddesses, or Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne,
goddess of memory, "Muse-mother," as Mrs. Browning terms her. The
history of woman as a poet has yet to be written, but to her in the
early ages poetry owed much of its development and its beauty. Mr. Vance
has remarked that "among many of the lowest races the only love-dances
in vogue are those performed by the women" (545a. 4069). And Letourneau
considers that "there are good grounds for supposing that women may have
especially participated in the creation of the lyric of the erotic
kind." Professor Mason, in the course of his remarks upon woman's labour
in the world in all ages, says (112. 12):--
"The idea of a _maker_, or creator-of-all-things found no congenial
soil in the minds of savage men, who manufactured nothing. But, as the
first potters, weavers, house-builders were women, the idea of a divine
creator as a moulder, designer, and architect originated with her, or
was suggested by her. The three Fates, Clotho, who spins the thread of
life; Lachesis, who fixes its prolongation; and Atropos, who cuts this
thread with remorseless shears, are necessarily derived from woman's
work. The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis
of the Virgin Mary, is an idea, either originated by women, or devised
to satisfy their spiritual cravings."
And we have, besides the goddesses of all mythologies, personifying
woman's devotion, beauty, love. What shall we say of that art, highest
of all human accomplishments, in the exercise of which men have become
almost as gods? The old Greeks called the singer [Greek: poiaetaes],
"maker," and perhaps from woman the first poets learned how to worship
in noble fashion that great _maker_ of all, whose poem is the
universe. Religion and poetry have ever gone hand in hand; Plato was
right when he said: "I am persuaded, somehow, that good poets are the
inspired interpreters of the gods." Of song, as of religion, it may
perhaps be said: _Dux foemina facti_.
To the mother beside the cradle where lies her tender offspring, song is
as natural as speech itself to man. Lullabies are found in every land;
everywhere the joyous mother-heart bursts forth into song. The German
proverb is significant: "Wer ein saugendes Kind hat, der hat eine
singende Frau," and Fischer, a quaint poet of the sixteenth century, has
beautifully expressed a like idea:--
"Wo Honig ist, da sammlen sieb die Fliegen, Wo Kinder sind, da singt man
um die Wiegen."
Ploss, in whose book is to be found a choice collection of lullabies
from all over the globe, remarks: "The folk-poetry of all peoples is
rich in songs whose texts and melodies the tender mother herself
imagined and composed" (326. II. 128).
The Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco devotes an interesting chapter of her
_Essays in the Study of Folk-Song_ to the subject of lullabies. But
not cradle-songs alone have sprung from woman's genius. The world over,
dirges and funeral-laments have received their poetical form from the
mother. As name-giver, too, in many lands, the mother exercised this
side of her imaginative faculty. The mother and the child, from whom
language received its chief inspiration, were also the callers forth of
its choicest and most creative form.
_Mother-Wit._
"An ounce o' mother-wit is worth a pound o' clergy," says the Scotch
proverb, and the "mother-wit," _Muttergeist_ and _Mutterwitz_,
that instructive common-sense, that saving light that make the genius
and even the fool, in the midst of his folly, wise, appear in folk-lore
and folk-speech everywhere. What the statistics of genius seem to show
that great men owe to their mothers, no less than fools, is summed up by
the folk-mind in the word _mother-wit_. Jean Paul says: "Die Mutter
geben uns von Geiste Warme und die Vater Licht," and Goethe, in a
familiar passage in his _Autobiography_, declares:--
"Vom Vater hab'ich die Statur,
Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren;
Vom Mutterchen die Frobnatur,
Und Lust zu fabulieren."
Shakespeare makes Petruchio tell the shrewish Katherine that his "goodly
speech" is "_extempore_ from my mother-wit," and Emerson calls
"mother-wit," the "cure for false theology." Quite appropriately
Spenser, in the _Faerie Queene_, speaks of "all that Nature by her
mother-wit could frame in earth." It is worth noting that when the
ancient Greeks came to name the soul, they personified it in Psyche, a
beautiful female, and that the word for "soul" is feminine in many
European languages.
Among the Teton Indians, according to the Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, the
following peculiar custom exists: "Prior to the naming of the infant is
the ceremony of the transfer of character; should the infant be a boy, a
brave and good-tempered man, chosen beforehand, takes the infant in his
arms and breathes into his mouth, thereby communicating his own
disposition to the infant, who will grow up to be a brave and
good-natured man. It is thought that such an infant will not cry as much
as infants that have not been thus favoured. Should the infant be a
girl, it is put into the arms of a good woman, who breathes into its
mouth" (433. 482).
Here we have _father_-wit as well as _mother_-wit.
_Mother-Tongue_.
Where women have no voice whatever in public affairs, and are
subordinated to the uttermost in social and family matters, little that
is honourable and noble is named for them. In East Central Africa, a Yao
woman, asked if the child she is carrying is a boy or a girl, frequently
replies: "My child is of the sex that does not speak" (518. XLIII. 249),
and with other peoples in higher stages of culture, the "silent woman"
lingers yet. _Taceat mulier in ecclesia_ still rings in our ears
to-day, as it has rung for untold centuries. Though the poet has said:--
"There is a sight all hearts beguiling--
A youthful mother to her infant smiling,
Who, with spread arms and dancing feet,
And cooing voice, returns its answer sweet,"
and mothers alone have understood the first babblings of humanity, they
have waited long to be remembered in the worthiest name of the language
they have taught their offspring.
The term _mother-tongue_, although Middle English had
"birthe-tonge," in the sense of native speech, is not old in our
language; the _Century Dictionary_ gives no examples of its early
use. Even immortal Shakespeare does not know it, for, in _King Richard
II._, he makes Mowbray say:--
"The language I have learned these forty years
(My native English) now must I forego."
The German version of the passage has, however, _mein mutterliches
Englisch_.
Cowper, in the _Task_, does use "mother-tongue," in the connection
following:--
"Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue."
_Mother-tongue_ has now become part and parcel of our common
speech; a good word, and a noble one.
In Modern High German, the corresponding _Mutterzunge_, found in
Sebastian Franck (sixteenth century) has gradually given way to
_Muttersprache_, a word whose history is full of interest. In
Germany, as in Europe generally, the esteem in which Latin was held in
the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following them, forbade
almost entirely the birth or extension of praiseworthy and endearing
names for the speech of the common people of the country. So long as men
spoke of "hiding the beauties of Latin in homely German words," and a
Bacon could think of writing his chief work in Latin, in order that he
might be remembered after his death, it were vain to expect aught else.
Hence, it does not surprise us to learn that the word
_Muttersprache_ is not many centuries old in German. Dr. Lubben,
who has studied its history, says it is not to be found in Old High
German or Middle High German (or Middle Low German), and does not appear
even in Luther's works, though, judging from a certain passage in his
_Table Talk_, it was perhaps known to him. It was only in the
seventeenth century that the word became quite common. Weigand states
that it was already in the _Dictionarium latino-germanicum_
(Zurich, 1556), and in Maaler's _Die Teutsch Spraach_ (Zurich,
1561), in which latter work (S. 262 a) we meet with the expressions
_vernacula lingua_, _patrius sermo_, _landspraach_,
_muoterliche spraach_, and _muoterspraach_ (S. 295 c). Opitz
(1624) uses the word, and it is found in Schottel's _Teutsche
Haupt-Sprache_ (Braunschweig, 1663). Apparently the earliest known
citation is the Low German _modersprake_, found in the introduction
of Dietrich Engelhus' (of Einbeck) _Deutsche Chronik_ (1424).
Nowadays _Muttersprache_ is found everywhere in the German
book-language, but Dr. Lubben, in 1881, declared that he had never heard
it from the mouth of the Low German folk, with whom the word was always
_lantsprake, gemene sprake_. Hence, although the word has been
immortalized by Klaus Groth, the Low German Burns, in the first poem of
his _Quickborn:_--
"Min Modersprak, so slicht un recht,
Du ole frame Red!
Wenn blot en Mund 'min Vader' seggt,
So klingt mi't as en Bed,"
and by Johann Meyer, in his _Ditmarscher Gedichte:_--
"Vaderhus un Modersprak!
Lat mi't nom'n un lat mi't rop'n;
Vaderhus, du belli Sted,
Modersprak, da frame Red,
Schonres klingt der Nix tohopen,"
it may be that _modersprak_ is not entirely a word of Low German
origin; beautiful though it is, this dialect, so closely akin to our own
English, did not directly give it birth. Nor do the corresponding terms
in the other Teutonic dialects,--Dutch _moederspraak, moedertaal_,
Swedish _modersmal_, etc.,--seem more original. The Romance
languages, however, offer a clue. In French, _langue mere_ is a
purely scientific term of recent origin, denoting the root-language of a
number of dialects, or of a "family of speech," and does not appear as
the equivalent of _Muttersprache_. The equivalents of the latter
are: French, _langue maternelle_; Spanish, _lengua materna_;
Italian, _lingua materna_, etc., all of which are modifications or
imitations of a Low Latin _lingua materna_, or _lingua
maternalis_. The Latin of the classic period seems not to have
possessed this term, the locutions in use being _sermo noster, patrius
sermo_, etc. The Greek had [Greek: _ae egchorios glossa ae idia
glossa,_] etc. Direct translations are met with in the _moderlike
sprake_ of Daniel von Soest, of Westphalia (sixteenth century), and
the _muoterliche spraach_ of Maaler (1561). It is from an Italian-
Latin source that Dr. Lubben supposes that the German prototypes of
_modersprak_ and _Muttersprache_ arose. In the _Bok der
Byen_, a semi-Low German translation (fifteenth century) of the
_Liber Apium_ of Thomas of Chantimpre, occurs the word
_modertale_ in the passage "Christus sede to er [the Samaritan
woman] mit sachte stemme in erre modertale." A municipal book of
Treuenbrietzen informs us that in the year 1361 it was resolved to write
in the _ydeoma maternale_--what the equivalent of this was in the
common speech is not stated--and in the _Relatio_ of Hesso, we find
the term _materna lingua_ (105 a).
The various dialects have some variants of _Muttersprache_, and in
Gottingen we meet with _moimen spraken_, where _moime_
(cognate with Modern High German _Muhme_, "aunt"), signifies
"mother," and is a child-word.
From the _mother-tongue_ to the _mother-land_ is but a step.
As the speech she taught her babe bears the mother's name, so does also
the land her toil won from the wilderness.
_Mother-Land._
As we say in English most commonly "native city," so also we say "native
land." Even Byron sings:--
"Adieu, adieu I my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue;
* * * * *
My native land--good night!"
and Fitz-Greene Halleck, in his patriotic poem "Marco Bozzaris," bids
strike "For God, and your native land."
Scott's far-famed lines:--
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,
This is my own, my native land!"
and Smith's national hymn, "My country,'tis of thee," know no
_mother-land_.
In the great _Century Dictionary_, the only illustration cited of
the use of the word _mother-land_ is a very recent one, from the
_Century Magazine_ (vol. xxix. p. 507).
Shakespeare, however, comes very near it, when, in _King John_
(V. ii.), he makes the Bastard speak of "your dear Mother-England,"
--but this is not quite "mother-land."
In German, though, through the sterner influences which surrounded the
Empire in its birth and reorganization, _Vaterland_ is now the
word, _Mutterland_ was used by Kant, Wieland, Goethe, Herder,
Uhland, etc. Lippert suggests an ingenious explanation of the origin of
the terms _Mutterland_, _Vaterland_, as well as for the
predominance of the latter and younger word. If, in primitive times, man
alone could hold property,--women even and children were his
chattels,--yet the development of agriculture and horticulture at the
hands of woman created, as it were, a new species of property, property
in land, the result of woman's toil and labour; and this new property,
in days when "mother-right" prevailed, came to be called
_Mutterland_, as it was essentially "mothers' land." But when men
began to go forth to war, and to conquer and acquire land that was not
"mothers' land," a new species of landed property,--the "land of the
conquering father,"--came into existence (and with it a new theory of
succession, "father-right"), and from that time forward "Vaterland" has
extended its signification, until it has attained the meaning which it
possesses in the German speech of to-day (492. 33, 36).
The inhabitants of the British colonies scattered all over the world
speak of Britain as the "mother country," "Mother England"; and R. H.
Stoddard, the American poet, calls her "our Mother's Mother." The French
of Canada term France over-sea "la mere patrie" (mother fatherland).
Even Livy, the Roman historian, wrote _terra quam matrem
appellamus_,--"the land we call mother,"--and Virgil speaks of
Apollo's native Delos as _Delum maternum_. But for all this, the
proud Roman called his native land, not after his mother, but after his
father, _patria_; so also in corresponding terms the Greek, [Greek:
_patris_], etc. But the latter remembered his mother also, as the
word _metropolis_, which we have inherited, shows. [Greek:
_Maetropolis_] had the meanings: "mother-state" (whence
daughter-colonies went forth); "a chief city, a capital, metropolis;
one's mother-city, or mother-country." In English, _metropolis_ has
been associated with "mother-church," for a _metropolis_ or a
_metropolitan_ city, was long one which was the seat of a
bishopric.
Among the ancient Greeks the Cretans were remarkable for saying not
[Greek: _patris_] (father-land), but [Greek: _maetris_]
(mother-land), by which name also the Messenians called their native
land. Some light upon the loss of "mother-words" in ancient Greece may
be shed from the legend which tells that when the question came whether
the new town was to be named after Athene or Poseidon, all the women
voted for the former, carrying the day by a single vote, whereupon
Poseidon, in anger, sent a flood, and the men, determining to punish
their wives, deprived them of the power of voting, and decided that
thereafter children were not to be named after their mothers (115. 235).
In Gothic, we meet with a curious term for "native land, home,"
_gabaurths_ (from _gabairan_ "to bear"), which signifies also
"birth." As an exemplification of the idea in the Sophoclean phrase
"all-nourishing earth," we find that at an earlier stage in the history
of our own English tongue _erd_ (cognate with our _earth_)
signified "native land," a remembrance of that view of savage and
uncivilized peoples in which _earth, land_ are "native country,"
for these are, in the true sense of the term, _Landesleute,
homines_.
In the language of the Hervey Islands, in the South Pacific, "the place
in which the placenta of an infant is buried is called the
_ipukarea_, or _native soil_" (459. 26).
Our English language seems still to prefer "native city, native town,
native village," as well as "native land," "mother-city" usually
signifying an older town from which younger ones have come forth. In
German, though _Vaterstadt_ in analogy with _Vaterland_ seems
to be the favorite, _Mutterstadt_ is not unknown.
Besides _Mutterland_ and _Mutterstadt_, we find in German the
following:--
_Mutterboden_, "mother-land." Used by the poet Uhland.
_Muttergefilde_, "the fields of mother-earth." Used by Schlegel.
_Muttergrund_, "the earth," as productive of all things. Used by
Goethe.
_Mutterhimmel_, "the sky above one's native land." Used by the
poet Herder.
_Mutterluft_, "the air of one's native land."
_Mutterhaus_, "the source, origin of anything." Uhland even has:--
"Hier ist des Stromes Mutterhaus,
Ich trink ihn frisch vom Stein heraus."
More far-reaching, diviner than "mother-land," is "mother-earth."
CHAPTER III.
THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER (_Continued_).
To the child its mother should be as God.--_G. Stanley Hall_.
A mother is the holiest thing alive.--_Coleridge_.
God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offence into everlasting
forgetfulness.--_Henry Ward Beecher_.
When the social world was written in terms of mother-right, the
religious world was expressed in terms of mother-god.
There is nothing more charming than to see a mother with a child in her
arms, and nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her
children.--_Goethe_.
_Mother-Earth_.
"Earth, Mother of all," is a world-wide goddess. Professor O.T. Mason,
says: "The earth is the mother of all mankind. Out of her came they. Her
traits, attributes, characteristics, they have so thoroughly inherited
and imbibed, that, from any doctrinal point of view regarding the origin
of the species, the earth may be said to have been created for men, and
men to have been created out of the earth. By her nurture and tuition
they grow up and flourish, and, folded in her bosom, they sleep the
sleep of death. The idea of the earth-mother is in every cosmogony.
Nothing is more beautiful in the range of mythology than the conception
of Demeter with Persephone, impersonating the maternal earth, rejoicing
in the perpetual return of her daughter in spring, and mourning over her
departure in winter to Hades" (389 (1894). 140).
Dr. D.G. Brinton writes in the same strain (409. 238): "Out of the earth
rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, nourishes
all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless breasts;
the Peruvians called her '_Mama_ Allpa,' _mother_ Earth; in
the Algonkin tongue, the words for earth, mother, father, are from the
same root. _Homo, Adam, chamaigenes_, what do all these words mean
but earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of
Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up like a flower?"
Mr. W. J. McGee, treating of "Earth the Home of Man," says (502. 28):--
"In like manner, mankind, offspring of Mother Earth, cradled and nursed
through helpless infancy by things earthly, has been brought well
towards maturity; and, like the individual man, he is repaying the debt
unconsciously assumed at the birth of his kind, by transforming the face
of nature, by making all things better than they were before, by aiding
the good and destroying the bad among animals and plants, and by
protecting the aging earth from the ravages of time and failing
strength, even as the child protects his fleshly mother. Such are the
relations of earth and man."
The Roman babe had no right to live until the father lifted him up from
"mother-earth" upon which he lay; at the baptism of the ancient Mexican
child, the mother spoke thus: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and
thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child and guard it as your son"
(529. 97); and among the Gypsies of northern Hungary, at a baptism, the
oldest woman present takes the child out, and, digging a circular trench
around the little one, whom she has placed upon the earth, utters the
following words: "Like this Earth, be thou strong and great, may thy
heart be free from care, be merry as a bird" (392 (1891). 20). All of
these practices have their analogues in other parts of the globe.
In another way, infanticide is connected with "mother-earth." In the
book of the "Wisdom of Solomon" (xiv. 23) we read: "They slew their
children in sacrifices." Infanticide--"murder most foul, as in the best
it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural"--has been sheltered
beneath the cloak of religion. The story is one of the darkest pages in
the history of man. A priestly legend of the Khonds of India attributes
to child-sacrifice a divine origin:--
"In the beginning was the Earth a formless mass of mud, and could not
have borne the dwelling of man, or even his weight; in this liquid and
ever-moving slime neither tree nor herb took root. Then God said: 'Spill
human blood before my face!' And they sacrificed a child before Him. ...
Falling upon the soil, the bloody drops stiffened and consolidated it."
But too well have the Khonds obeyed the command: "And by the virtues of
the blood shed, the seeds began to sprout, the plants to grow, the
animals to propagate. And God commanded that the Earth should be watered
with blood every new season, to keep her firm and solid. And this has
been done by every generation that has preceded us."
More than once "the mother, with her boys and girls, and perhaps even a
little child in her arms, were immolated together,"--for sometimes the
wretched children, instead of being immediately sacrificed, were allowed
to live until they had offspring whose sad fate was determined ere their
birth. In the work of Reclus may be read the fearful tale of the cult of
"Pennou, the terrible earth-deity, the bride of the great Sun-God" (523.
315).
In Tonga the paleness of the moon is explained by the following legend:
Vatea (Day) and Tonga-iti (Night) each claimed the first-born of Papa
(Earth) as his own child. After they had quarrelled a great deal, the
infant was cut in two, and Vatea, the husband of Papa, "took the upper
part as his share, and forthwith squeezed it into a ball and tossed it
into the heavens, where it became the sun." But Tonga-iti, in sullen
humour, let his half remain on the ground for a day or two. Afterward,
however, "seeing the brightness of Vatea's half, he resolved to imitate
his example by compressing his share into a ball, and tossing it into
the dark sky during the absence of the sun in Avaiki, or netherworld."
It became the moon, which is so pale by reason of "the blood having all
drained out and decomposition having commenced," before Tonga-iti threw
his half up into the sky (458. 45). With other primitive peoples, too,
the gods were infanticidal, and many nations like those of Asia Minor,
who offered up the virginity of their daughters upon the altars of their
deities, hesitated not to slay upon their high places the first innocent
pledges of motherhood.
The earth-goddess appears again when the child enters upon manhood, for
at Brahman marriages in India, the bridegroom still says to the bride,
"I am the sky, thou art the earth, come let us marry" (421. 29).
And last of all, when the ineluctable struggle of death is over, man
returns to the "mother-earth"--dust to dust. One of the hymns of the
Rig-Veda has these beautiful words, forming part of the funeral
ceremonies of the old Hindus:--
"Approach thou now the lap of Earth, thy mother,
The wide-extending Earth, the ever-kindly;
A maiden soft as wool to him who comes with gifts,
She shall protect thee from destruction's bosom.
"Open thyself, O Earth, and press not heavily;
Be easy of access and of approach to him,
As mother with her robe her child,
So do thou cover him, O Earth!" (421. 31).
The study of the mortuary rites and customs of the primitive peoples of
all ages of the world's history (548) reveals many instances of the
belief that when men, "the common growth of mother-earth," at last rest
their heads upon her lap, they do not wholly die, for the immortality of
Earth is theirs. Whether they live again,--as little children are often
fabled to do,--when Earth laughs with flowers of spring, or become
incarnate in other members of the animate or inanimate creation, whose
kinship with man and with God is an article of the great folk-creed, or,
in the beautiful words of the burial service of the Episcopal Church,
sleep "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain
hope of the resurrection," all testifies that man is instinct with the
life that throbs in the bosom of Earth, his Mother. As of old, the story
ran that man grew into being from the dust, or sprang forth in god-like
majesty, so, when death has come, he sinks to dust again, or
triumphantly scales the lofty heights where dwell the immortal deities,
and becomes "as one of them."
With the idea of the earth-mother are connected the numerous myths of
the origin of the first human beings from clay, mould, etc., their
provenience from caves, holes in the ground, rocks and mountains,
especially those in which the woman is said to have been created first
(509. 110). Here belong also not a few ethnic names, for many primitive
peoples have seen fit to call themselves "sons of the soil, _terrae
filii_, _Landesleute_."
Muller and Brinton have much to say of the American earth-goddesses,
_Toci_, "our mother," and goddess of childbirth among the ancient
Mexicans (509. 494); the Peruvian _Pachamama_, "mother-earth," the
mother of men (509. 369); the "earth-mother" of the Caribs, who through
earthquakes manifests her animation and cheerfulness to her children,
the Indians, who forthwith imitate her in joyous dances (509. 221); the
"mother-earth" of the Shawnees, of whom the Indian chief spoke, when he
was bidden to regard General Harrison as "Father": "No, the sun yonder
is my father, and the earth my mother; upon her bosom will I repose,"
etc. (509. 117).
Among the earth-goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome are Demeter, Ceres,
Tellus, Rhea, Terra, Ops, Cybele, Bona Dea, Bona Mater, Magna Mater,
Gaea, Ge, whose attributes and ceremonies are described in the books of
classical mythology. Many times they are termed "mother of the gods" and
"mother of men"; Cybele is sometimes represented as a woman advanced in
pregnancy or as a woman with many breasts; Rhea, or Cybele, as the
hill-enthroned protectress of cities, was styled _Mater turrita_.
The ancient Teutons had their _Hertha_, or _Erdemutter_, the
_Nertha_ of Tacitus, and fragments of the primitive earth-worship
linger yet among the folk of kindred stock. The Slavonic peoples had
their "earth-mother" also.
The ancient Indian Aryans worshipped Prithivi-matar, "earth-mother," and
Dyaus pitar, "sky-father," and in China, Yang, Sky, is regarded as the
"father of all things," while Yu, Earth, is the "mother of all things."
Among the ancient Egyptians the "earth-mother," the "parent of all
things born," was Isis, the wife of the great Osiris. The natal
ceremonies of the Indians of the Sia Pueblo have been described at great
length by Mrs. Stevenson (538. 132-143). Before the mother is delivered
of her child the priest repeats in a low tone the following prayer:--
"Here is the child's sand-bed. May the child have good thoughts and know
its mother-earth, the giver of food. May it have good thoughts and grow
from childhood to manhood. May the child be beautiful and happy. Here is
the child's bed; may the child be beautiful and happy. Ashes man, let me
make good medicine for the child. We will receive the child into our
arms, that it may be happy and contented. May it grow from childhood to
manhood. May it know its mother Ct'set [the first created woman], the
Ko'pishtaia, and its mother-earth. May the child have good thoughts and
grow from childhood to manhood. May it be beautiful and happy" (538.
134).
On the fourth morning after the birth of the child, the doctress in
attendance, "stooping until she almost sits on the ground, bares the
child's head as she holds it toward the rising sun, and repeats a long
prayer, and, addressing the child, she says: 'I bring you to see your
Sun-father and Ko'pishtaia, that you may know them and they you'" (538.
141).
_Mother-Mountain._
Though we are now accustomed, by reason of their grandeur and sublimity,
to personify mountains as masculine, the old fable of Phadrus about the
"mountain in labour, that brought forth a mouse,"--as Horace has it,
_Montes laborabant et parturitur ridiculus mus_,--shows that
another concept was not unknown to the ancients. The Armenians call
Mount Ararat "Mother of the World" (500. 39), and the Spaniards speak of
a chief range of mountains as _Sierra Madre_. In mining we meet
with the "mother-lode," _veta, madre_, but, curiously enough, the
main shaft is called in German _Vaterschacht_.
We know that the Lapps and some other primitive peoples "transferred to
stones the domestic relations of father, mother, and child," or regarded
them as children of Mother-Earth (529. 64); "eggs of the earth" they are
called in the magic songs of the Finns. In Suffolk, England,
"conglomerate is called 'mother of stones,' under the idea that pebbles
are born of it"; in Germany _Mutterstein_. And in litholatry, in
various parts of the globe, we have ideas which spring from like
conceptions.
_Mother-Night._
Milton speaks of the "wide womb of uncreate night," and some of the
ancient classical poets call _Nox_ "the mother of all things, of
gods as well as men." "The Night is Mother of the Day," says Whittier,
and the myth he revives is an old and wide-spread one. "Out of Night is
born day, as a child comes forth from the womb of his mother," said the
Greek and Roman of old. As Bachofen (6. 16, 219) remarks: "Das
Mutterthum verbindet sich mit der Idee der den Tag aus sich gebierenden
Nacht, wie das Vaterrecht dem Reiche des Lichts, dem von der Sonne mit
der Mutter Nacht gezeugten Tage." Darkness, Night, Earth, Motherhood,
seem all akin in the dim light of primitive philosophy. Yet night is not
always figured as a woman. James Ferguson, the Scotch poet, tells us how
"Auld Daddy Darkness creeps frae his hole,
Black as a blackamoor, blin' as a mole,"
and holds dominion over earth till "Wee Davie Daylicht comes keekin'
owre the hill" (230. 73).
An old Anglo-Saxon name for Christinas was _modra-neht,_ "mother's
night."
_Mother-Dawn._
In Sanskrit mythology Ushas, "Dawn," is daughter of Heaven, and
poetically she is represented as "a young wife awakening her children
and giving them new strength for the toils of the new day."
Sometimes she is termed _gavam ganitri,_ "the mother of the cows,"
which latter mythologists consider to be either "the clouds which pour
water on the fields, or the bright mornings which, like cows, are
supposed to step out one by one from the stable of the night" (510.
431).
In an ancient Hindu hymn to Ushas we read:--
"She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go
to his work. When the fire had to be kindled by men, she made the light
by striking down darkness.
"She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving everywhere. She grew in
brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows, the
leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold" (421.
29).
This daughter of the sky was the "lengthener of life, the love of all,
the giver of food, riches, blessings." According to Dr. Brinton, the
Quiche Indians of Guatemala speak of Xmucane and Xpiyacoc as being "the
great ancestress and the great ancestor" of all things. The former is
called _r'atit zih, r'atit zak,_ "primal mother of the sun and
light" (411. 119).
_Mother-Days_.
In Russia we meet with the days of the week as "mothers." Perhaps the
most remarkable of these is "Mother Friday," a curious product of the
mingling of Christian hagiology and Slavonic mythology, of St. Prascovia
and the goddess Siwa. On the day sacred to her, "Mother Friday" wanders
about the houses of the peasants, avenging herself on such as have been
so rash as to sew, spin, weave, etc., on a Friday (520. 206).
In a Wallachian tale appear three supernatural females,--the holy
mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday,--who assist the hero in his quest
of the heroine, and in another Wallachian story they help a wife to find
her lost husband.
"Mother Sunday" is said "to rule the animal world, and can collect her
subjects by playing on a magic flute. She is represented as exercising
authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows
on the hero a magic horse" (520. 211). In Bulgaria we even find
mother-months, and Miss Garnett has given an account of the superstition
of "Mother March" among the women of that country (61.I. 330). William
Miller, the poet-laureate of the nursery, sings of _Lady Summer_:--
"Birdie, birdie, weet your whistle!
Sing a sang to please the wean;
Let it be o' Lady Summer
Walking wi' her gallant train!
Sing him how her gaucy mantle,
Forest-green, trails ower the lea,
Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't
Wi' the field flowers to the knee!
"How her foot's wi' daisies buskit,
Kirtle o' the primrose hue,
And her e'e sae like my laddie's,
Glancing, laughing, loving blue!
How we meet on hill and valley,
Children sweet as fairest flowers,
Buds and blossoms o' affection,
Rosy wi' the sunny hours" (230. 161).
_Mother-Sun_.
In certain languages, as in Modern German, the word for "sun" is
feminine, and in mythology the orb of day often appears as a woman. The
German peasant was wont to address the sun and the moon familiarly as
"Frau Sonne" and "Herr Mond," and in a Russian folk-song a fair maiden
sings (520. 184):--
"My mother is the beauteous Sun,
And my father, the bright Moon;
My brothers are the many Stars,
And my sisters the white Dawns."
Jean Paul beautifully terms the sun "Sonne, du Mutterauge der Welt!" and
Holty sings: "Geh aus deinem Gezelt, Mutter des Tags hervor, und
vergulde die wache Welt"; in another passage the last writer thus
apostrophizes the sun: "Heil dir, Mutter des Lichts!" These terms
"mother-eye of the world," "mother of day," "mother of light," find
analogues in other tongues. The Andaman Islanders have their _chan-a
bo-do_, "mother-sun" (498. 96), and certain Indians of Brazil call
the sun _coaracy_, "mother of the day or earth." In their sacred
language the Dakota Indians speak of the sun as "grandmother" and the
moon as "grandfather." The Chiquito Indians "used to call the sun their
mother, and, at every eclipse of the sun, they would shoot their arrows
so as to wound it; they would let loose their dogs, who, they thought,
went instantly to devour the moon" (100. 289).
The Yuchi Indians called themselves "children of the sun." Dr. Gatschet
tells us: "The Yuchis believe themselves to be the offspring of the sun,
which they consider to be a female. According to one myth, a couple of
human beings were born from her monthly efflux, and from, these the
Yuchis afterward originated." Another myth of the same people says: "An
unknown mysterious being once came down upon the earth and met people
there who were the ancestors of the Yuchi Indians. To them this being
(_Hi'ki_, or _Ka'la hi'ki_) taught many of the arts of life,
and in matters of religion admonished them to call the sun their mother
as a matter of worship" (389 (1893). 280).
_Mother-Moon_.
Shelley sings of
"That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,"
and in other languages besides Latin the word for moon is feminine, and
the lunar deity a female, often associated with childbirth. The
moon-goddesses of the Orient--Diana (Juno), Astarte, Anahita,
etc.--preside over the beginnings of human life. Not a few primitive
peoples have thought of the moon as mother. The ancient Peruvians
worshipped _Mama-Quilla_, "mother-moon," and the Hurons regarded
Ataensic, the mother or grandmother of Jouskeha, the sun, as the
"creatress of earth and man," as well as the goddess of death and of the
souls of the departed (509. 363). The Tarahumari Indians of the Sierra
of Chihuahua, Mexico, call the sun _au-nau-ru-a-mi_, "high father,"
and the moon, _je-ru-a-mi_, "high mother." The Tupi Indians of
Brazil term the moon _jacy_, "our mother," and the same name occurs
in the Omagua and other members of this linguistic stock. The Muzo
Indians believe that the sun is their father and the moon their mother
(529. 95).
Horace calls the moon _siderum regina_, and Apuleius, _regina
coeli_, and Milton writes of
"mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both."
Froebel's verses, "The Little Girl and the Stars," are stated to be
based upon the exclamation of the child when seeing two large stars
close together in the heavens, "Father-Mother-Star," and a further
instance of like nature is cited where the child applied the word
"mother" to the moon.
_Mother-Fire._
An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, taught that the
world was created from fire, the omnipotent and omniscient essence, and
with many savage and barbaric peoples fire-worship has nourished or
still flourishes. The Indie Aryans of old produced fire by the method of
the twirling stick, and in their symbolism "the turning stick, Pramanta,
was the father of the god of fire; the immovable stick was the mother of
the adorable and luminous Agni [fire]"--a concept far-reaching in its
mystic and mythological relations (100. 564).
According to Mr. Gushing the Zuni Indians term fire the "Grandmother of
Men."
In their examination of the burial-places of the ancient Indian
population of the Salado River Valley in Arizona, the Hemenway Exploring
Expedition found that many children were buried near the kitchen
hearths. Mr. Cushing offers the following explanation of this custom,
which finds analogies in various parts of the world: "The matriarchal
grandmother, or matron of the household deities, is the fire. It is
considered the guardian, as it is also, being used for cooking, the
principal 'source of life' of the family. The little children being
considered unable to care for themselves, were placed, literally, under
the protection of the family fire that their soul-life might be
nourished, sustained, and increased" (501. 149). Boecler tells us that
the Esthonian bride "consecrates her new home and hearth by an offering
of money cast into the fire, or laid on the oven, for _Tule-ema_,
[the] Fire Mother" (545. II. 285). In a Mongolian wedding-song there is
an invocation of "Mother Ut, Queen of Fire," who is said to have come
forth "when heaven and earth divided," and to have issued "from the
footsteps of Mother-Earth." She is further said to have "a manly son,
a beauteous daughter-in-law, bright daughters" (484. 38).
_Mother-Water._
The poet Homer and the philosopher Thales of Miletus agreed in regarding
water as the primal element, the original of all existences, and their
theory has supporters among many primitive peoples. At the baptism
festivals of their children, the ancient Mexicans recognized the goddess
of the waters. At sunrise the midwife addressed the child, saying, among
other things: "Be cleansed with thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the
goddess of water." Then, placing her dripping finger upon the child's
lips, she continued: "Take this, for on it thou must live, grow, become
strong, and flourish. Through it we receive all our needs. Take it."
And, again, "We are all in the hands of Chalchihuitlicue, our mother";
as she washed the child she uttered the formula: "Bad, whatever thou
art, depart, vanish, for the child lives anew and is born again; it is
once more cleansed, once more renewed through our mother
Chalchihuitlicue." As she lifted the child up into the air, she prayed,
"O Goddess, Mother of Water, fill this child with thy power and virtue"
(326. I. 263).
In their invocation for the restoration of the spirit to the body, the
Nagualists,--a native American mystic sect,--of Mexico and Central
America, make appeal to "Mother mine, whose robe is of precious gems,"
_i.e._ water, regarded as "the universal mother." The "robe of
precious stones" refers to "the green or vegetable life" resembling the
green of precious stones. Another of her names is the "Green Woman,"--a
term drawn from "the greenness which follows moisture" (413. 52-54).
The idea of water as the source of all things appears also in the
cosmology of the Indie Aryans. In one of the Vedic hymns it is stated
that water existed before even the gods came into being, and the
Rig-veda tells us that "the waters contained a germ from which
everything else sprang forth." This is plainly a myth of the motherhood
of the waters, for in the Brahmanas we are told that from the water
arose an egg, from which came forth after a year Pragapati, the creator
(510. 248). Variants of this myth of the cosmic egg are found in other
quarters of the globe.
_Mother-Ocean._
The Chinchas of Peru looked upon the sea as the chief deity and the
mother of all things, and the Peruvians worshipped _Mama-Cocha_,
"mother sea" (509. 368), from which had come forth everything, even
animals, giants, and the Indians themselves. Associated with
_Mama-Cocha_ was the god _Vira-Cocha_, "sea-foam." In Peru
water was revered everywhere,--rivers and canals, fountains and
wells,--and many sacrifices were made to them, especially of certain
sea-shells which were thought to be "daughters of the sea, the mother of
all waters." The traditions of the Incas point to an origin from Lake
Titicaca, and other tribes fabled their descent from fountains and
streams (412. 204). Here belong, doubtless, some of the myths of the
sea-born deities of classical mythology as well as those of the
water-origin of the first of the human race, together with kindred
conceits of other primitive peoples.
In the Bengalese tale of "The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead,"
recorded by Day, the hero pleads: "O mother Ocean, please make way for
me, or else I die" (426. 250), and passes on in safety. The poet
Swinburne calls the sea "fair, white mother," "green-girdled mother,"
"great, sweet mother, mother and lover of men, the sea."
_Mother-River._
According to Russian legend "the Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina used once to
be living people. The Dnieper was a boy, and the Volga and Dvina his
sisters." The Russians call their great river "Mother Volga," and it is
said that, in the seventeenth century, a chief of the Don Cossacks,
inflamed with wine, sacrificed to the mighty stream a Persian princess,
accompanying his action with these words: "O Mother Volga, thou great
River! much hast thou given me of gold and of silver, and of all good
things; thou hast nursed me and nourished me, and covered me with glory
and honor. But I have in no way shown thee my gratitude. Here is
somewhat for thee; take it!" (520. 217-220).
In the Mahabharata, the great Sanskrit epic, King Santanu is said to
have walked by the side of the river one day, where "he met and fell in
love with a beautiful girl, who told him that she was the river Ganges,
and could only marry him on condition he never questioned her conduct.
To this he, with a truly royal gallantry, agreed; and she bore him
several children, all of whom she threw into the river as soon as they
were born. At last she bore him a boy, Bhishma; and her husband begged
her to spare his life, whereupon she instantly changed into the river
Ganges and flowed away" (258. 317). Similar folk-tales are to be met
with in other parts of the world, and the list of water-sprites and
river-goddesses is almost endless. Greater than "Mother Volga," is
"Mother Ganges," to whom countless sacrifices have been made. In the
language of the Caddo Indians, the Mississippi is called _bahat
sassin_, "mother of rivers."
_Mother-Plant._
The ancient Peruvians had their "Mother Maize," _Mama Cora_, which
they worshipped with a sort of harvest-home having, as Andrew Lang
points out, something in common with the children's last sheaf, in the
north-country (English and Scotch) "kernaby," as well as with the
"Demeter of the threshing-floor," of whom Theocritus speaks (484. 18).
An interesting legend of the Indians of the Pueblos of Arizona and New
Mexico is recorded by Muller (509. 60). Ages ago there dwelt on the
green plains a beautiful woman, who refused all wooers, though they
brought many precious gifts. It came to pass that the land was sore
distressed by dearth and famine, and when the people appealed to the
woman she gave them maize in plenty. One day, she lay asleep naked; a
rain-drop falling upon her breast, she conceived and bore a son, from
whom are descended the people who built the "Casas Grandes." Dr. Fewkes
cites a like myth of the Hopi or Tusayan Indians in which appears
_ko-kyan-wuq-ti_, "the spider woman," a character possessing
certain attributes of the Earth-Mother. Speaking of certain ceremonies
in which _Ca-li-ko_, the corn-goddess, figures, he calls attention
to the fact that "in initiations an ear of corn is given to the novice
as a symbolic representation of mother. The corn is the mother of all
initiated persons of the tribe" (389 (1894). 48).
Mr. Lummis also speaks of "Mother Corn" among the Pueblos Indians: "A
flawless ear of pure white corn (type of fertility and motherhood) is
decked out with a downy mass of snow-white feathers, and hung with
ornaments of silver, coral, and the precious turquoise" (302. 72).
Concerning the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell tells us that after the
separation of the peoples, the boy (medicine-man) who was with the few
who still remained at the place from which the others had departed,
going their different ways, found in the sacred bundle--the Shekinah of
the tribe--an ear of corn. To the people he said: "We are to live by
this, this is our Mother." And from "Mother Corn" the Indians learned
how to make bows and arrows. When these Indians separated into three
bands (according to the legend), the boy broke off the nub of the ear
and gave it to the Mandans, the big end he gave to the Pawnees, and the
middle to the Rees. This is why, at the present time, the Pawnees have
the best and largest corn, the Rees somewhat inferior, and the Mandans
the shortest of all--since they planted the pieces originally given them
(480 (1893). 125).
The old Mexicans had in Cinteotl a corn-goddess and deity of fertility
in whose honour even human sacrifices were made. She was looked upon as
"the producer," especially of children, and sometimes represented with a
child in her arms (509. 491).
In India there is a regular cult of the holy basil (_Ocymum
sanetum_), or _Tulasi_, as it is called, which appears to be a
transformation of the goddess Lakshmi. It may be gathered for pious
purposes only, and in so doing the following prayer is offered: "Mother
_Tulasi_, be thou propitious. If I gather thee with care, be
merciful unto me. O _Tulasi_, mother of the world, I beseech thee."
This plant is worshipped as a deity,--the wife of Vishnu, whom the
breaking of even a little twig grieves and torments,--and "the pious
Hindus invoke the divine herb for the protection of every part of the
body, for life and for death, and in every action of life; but above
all, in its capacity of ensuring children to those who desire to have
them." To him who thoughtlessly or wilfully pulls up the plant "no
happiness, no health, no children." The _Tulasi_ opens the gates of
heaven; hence on the breast of the pious dead is placed a leaf of basil,
and the Hindu "who has religiously planted and cultivated the
_Tulasi_, obtains the privilege of ascending to the palace of
Vishnu, surrounded by ten millions of parents" (448. 244).
In Denmark, there is a popular belief that in the elder
(_Sambucus_) there lives a spirit or being known as the
"elder-mother" (_hylde-moer_), or "elder-woman"
(_hilde-qvinde_), and before elder-branches may be cut this
petition is uttered: "Elder-mother, elder-mother, allow me to cut thy
branches." In Lower Saxony the peasant repeats, on bended knees, with
hands folded, three times the words: "Lady Elder, give me some of thy
wood; then will I also give thee some of mine, when it grows in the
forest" (448. 318-320). In Huntingdonshire, England, the belief in the
"elder-mother" is found, and it is thought dangerous to pluck the
flowers, while elder-wood, in a room, or used for a cradle, is apt to
work evil for children. In some parts of England, it is believed that
boys beaten with an elder stick will be retarded in their growth; in
Sweden, women who are about to become mothers kiss the elder. In
Germany, a somewhat similar personification of the juniper, "Frau
Wachholder," exists. And here we come into touch with the dryads and
forest-sprites of all ages, familiar to us in the myths of classic
antiquity and the tales of the nursery (448. 396).
In a Bengalese tale, the hero, on coming to a forest, cries: "O mother
_kachiri_, please make way for me, or else I die," and the wood
opens to let him pass through (426. 250).
Perhaps the best and sweetest story of plant mythology under this head
is Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful tale of "The Elder-Tree
Mother,"--the Dryad whose name is Remembrance (393. 215).
_Mother-Thumb._
Our word _thumb_ signifies literally "thick or big finger," and the
same idea occurs in other languages. With not a few primitive peoples
this thought takes another turn, and, as in the speech of the
Karankawas, an extinct Indian tribe of Texas, "the _biggest_, or
_thickest_ finger is called '_father_, _mother_, or
_old_'" (456. 68). The Creek Indians of the Southeastern United
States term the "thumb" _ingi itchki_, "the hand its mother," and a
like meaning attaches to the Chickasaw _ilbak-ishke_, Hichiti
_ilb-iki_, while the Muskogees call the "thumb," the "mother of
fingers." It is worthy of note, that, in the Bakairi language of Brazil,
the thumb is called "father," and the little finger, "child," or "little
one" (536. 406). In Samoa the "thumb" is named _lima-matua_,
"forefather of the hand," and the "first finger" _lima-tama_,
"child of the hand." In the Tshi language of Western Africa a finger is
known as _ensah-tsia-abbah_, "little child of the hand," and in
some other tongues of savage or barbaric peoples "fingers" are simply
"children of the hand."
Professor Culin in his notes of "Palmistry in China and Japan," says:
"The thumb, called in Japanese, _oya-ubi_, 'parent-finger,' is for
parents. The little finger, called in Japanese, _ko-ubi_,
'child-finger,' is for children; the index-finger is for uncle, aunt,
and elder brother and elder sister. The third finger is for younger
brother and younger sister" (423a). A short little finger indicates
childlessness, and lines on the palm of the hand, below the little
finger, children. There are very many nursery-games and rhymes of
various sorts based upon the hand and fingers, and in not a few of these
the thumb and fingers play the _role_ of mother and children.
Froebel seized upon this thought to teach the child the idea of the
family. His verses are well-known:--
"Das ist die Groszmama,
Das ist der Groszpapa,
Das ist der Vater,
Das ist die Mutter,
Das ist's kleine Kindchen ja;
Seht die ganze Familie da.
Das ist die Mutter lieb und gut,
Das ist der Vater mit frohem Muth;
Das ist der Bruder lang und grosz;
Das ist die Schwester mit Puppchen im Schoosz;
Und dies ist das Kindchen, noch klein und zart,
Und dies die Familie von guter Art."
Referring to Froebel's games, Elizabeth Harrison remarks:--
"In order that this activity, generally first noticed in the use of the
hands, might be trained into right and ennobling habits, rather than be
allowed to degenerate into wrong and often degrading ones, Froebel
arranged his charming set of finger-games for the mother to teach her
babe while he is yet in her arms; thus establishing the right activity
before the wrong one can assert itself. In such little songs as the
following:--
'This is the mother, good and dear;
This the father, with hearty cheer;
This is the brother, stout and tall;
This is the sister, who plays with her doll;
And this is the baby, the pet of all.
Behold the good family, great and small,'
the child is led to personify his fingers and to regard them as a small
but united family over which he has control." (257 a. 14).
Miss Wiltse, who devotes a chapter of her little volume to "Finger-songs
related to Family Life and the Imaginative Faculty," says:--
"The dawning consciousness of the child so turned to the family
relations is surely better than the old nursery method of playing 'This
little pig went to market'" (384. 45).
And from the father and mother the step to God is easy.
Dr. Brewer informs us that in the Greek and Roman Church the Trinity is
symbolized by the thumb and first two fingers: "The thumb, being strong,
represents the _Father_; the long, or second finger, _Jesus
Christ_; and the first finger, the _Holy Ghost_, which
proceedeth from the Father and the Son" (_Dict. of Phrase and
Fable_, P. 299).
_Mother-God_.
The "Motherhood of God" is an expression that still sounds somewhat
strangely to our ears. We have come to speak readily enough of the
"Fatherhood of God" and the "Brotherhood of Man," but only a still small
voice has whispered of the "Motherhood of God" and the "Sisterhood of
Woman." Yet there have been in the world, as, indeed, there are now,
multitudes to whom the idea of Heaven without a mother is as blank as
that of the home without her who makes it. If over the human babe bends
the human mother who is its divinity,--
"The infant lies in blessed ease
Upon his mother's breast;
No storm, no dark, the baby sees
Invade his heaven of rest.
He nothing knows of change or death--
Her face his holy skies;
The air he breathes, his mother's breath--
His stars, his mother's eyes,"--
so over the infant-race must bend the All-Mother, _das
Ewigweibliche._ Perhaps the greatest service that the Roman Catholic
Church has rendered to mankind is the prominence given in its cult of
the Virgin Mary to the mother-side of Deity. In the race's final concept
of God, the embodiment of all that is pure and holy, there must surely
be some overshadowing of a mother's tender love. With the "Father-Heart"
of the Almighty must be linked the "Mother-Soul." To some extent, at
least, we may expect a harking back to the standpoint of the Buddhist
Kalmuck, whose child is taught to pray: "O God, who art my father and my
mother."
In all ages and over the whole world peoples of culture less than ours
have had their "mother-gods," all the embodiments of motherhood, the joy
of the _Magnificat_, the sacrosanct expression of the poet's
truth:--
"Close to the mysteries of God art thou,
My brooding mother-heart,"
the recognition of that outlasting secret hope and love, of which the
Gospel writer told in the simple words: "Now there stood by the cross of
Jesus his mother," and faith in which was strong in the Mesopotamians of
old, who prayed to the goddess Istar, "May thy heart be appeased as the
heart of a mother who has borne children." The world is at its best when
the last, holiest appeal is _ad matrem_. Professor O.T. Mason has
eloquently stated the debt of the world's religions to motherhood (112.
12):--"The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis
of the Virgin Mary, is an idea either originated by women, or devised to
satisfy their spiritual cravings. So we may go through the pantheons of
all peoples, finding counterparts of Rhea, mother-earth, goddess of
fertility; Hera, queen of harvests, feeder of mankind; Hestia, goddess
of the hearth and home, of families and states, giving life and warmth;
Aphrodite, the beautiful, patron of romantic love and personal charms;
Hera, sovereign lady, divine caciquess, embodiment of queenly dignity;
Pallas Athene, ideal image of that central inspiring force that we learn
at our mother's knee, and that shone in eternal splendour; Isis, the
goddess of widowhood, sending forth her son Horus, to avenge the death
of his father, Osiris; as moon-goddess, keeping alive the light until
the sun rises again to bless the world."
_The All-Mother._
In Polynesian mythology we find, dwelling in the lowest depths of Avaiki
(the interior of the universe), the "Great Mother,"--the originator of
all things, _Vari-ma-te-takere_, "the very beginning,"--and her
pet child, Tu-metua, "Stick by the parent," her last offspring,
inseparable from her. All of her children were born of pieces of flesh
which she plucked off her own body; the first-born was the man-fish
Vatea, "father of gods and men," whose one eye is the sun, the other the
moon; the fifth child was Raka, to whom his mother gave the winds in a
basket, and "the children of Raka are the numerous winds and storms
which distress mankind. To each child is allotted a hole at the edge of
the horizon, through which he blows at pleasure." In the songs the gods
are termed "the children of Vatea," and the ocean is sometimes called
"the sea of Vatea." Mr. Gill tells us that "the Great Mother
approximates nearest to the dignity of creator"; and, curiously enough,
the word _Vari_, "beginning," signifies, on the island of
Rarotonga, "mud," showing that "these people imagined that once the
world was a 'chaos of mud,' out of which some mighty unseen agent, whom
they called _Vari_, evolved the present order of things" (458. 3,
21).
Another "All-Mother" is she of whom our own poets have sung, "Nature,"
the source and sustainer of all.
_Mother-Nature_.
"So ubt Natur die Mutterpflicht," sang the poet Schiller, and "Mother
Nature" is the key-word of those modern poets who, in their mystic
philosophy, consciously or unconsciously, revive the old mythologies.
With primitive peoples the being, growing power of the universe was
easily conceived as feminine and as motherly. Nature is the "great
parent," the "gracious mother," of us all. In "Mother Nature," woman,
the creator of the earliest arts of man, is recognized and personified,
and in a wider sense even than the poet dreamt of: "One touch of Nature
makes the whole world kin."
Pindar declared that "gods and men are sons of the same mother," and
with many savage and barbaric tribes, gods, men, animals, and all other
objects, animate and inanimate, are akin(388.210). As Professor
Robertson Smith has said: "The same lack of any sharp distinction
between the nature of different kinds of visible beings appears in the
old myths in which all kinds of objects, animate and inanimate, organic
and inorganic, appear as cognate with one another, with men, and with
the gods" (535.85). Mr. Hartland, speaking of this stage of thought,
says: "Sun and moon, the wind and the waters, perform all the functions
of living beings; they speak, they eat, they marry and have children"
(258.26). The same idea is brought out by Count D'Alviella: "The highest
point of development that polytheism could reach, is found in the
conception of a monarchy or divine family, embracing all terrestrial
beings, and even the whole universe" (388.211). Mr. Frank Cushing
attributes like beliefs in the kinship of all existences to the Zuni
Indians (388.66), and Mr. im Thurn to the Indians of Guiana (388.99).
This feeling of kinship to all that is, is beautifully expressed in the
words of the dying Greek Klepht: "Do not say that I am dead, but say
that I am married in the sorrowful, strange countries, that I have taken
the flat stone for a mother-in-law, the black earth for my wife, and the
little pebbles for brothers-in-law." (Lady Verney, _Essays_, II.
39.)
In the Trinity of Upper Egypt the second person was Mut, "Mother
Nature." the others being Armin, the chief god, and their son, Khuns.
Among the Slavs, according to Mone, Ziwa is a nature-goddess, and the
Wends regard her as "many-breasted Mother Nature," the producing and
nourishing power of the earth. Her consort is Zibog, the god of life
(125. II. 23).
Curiously reminiscent of the same train of ideas which has given to the
_moderson_ of Low German the signification of "bastard," is our own
equivalent term "natural son."
Poets and orators have not failed to appeal to "Mother Nature" and to
sing her panegyrics, but there is perhaps nothing more sweet and noble
than the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Nature, like a loving mother,
is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its
place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat
and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony, and beauty may reign
supreme," and the verses of Longfellow:--
"And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, 'Here is a story-book
Thy Father has--written for thee.
"'Come wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread,
In the manuscripts of God.'
"And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him, night and day,
The rhymes of the universe.
"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She--would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale."
Through the long centuries Nature has been the mother, nurse, and
teacher of man.
_Other Mother-Goddesses_.
Among other "mother-goddesses" of ancient Italy we find _Maia
Mater_, _Flora Mater_, both deities of growth and reproduction;
_Lua Mater_, "the loosing mother," a goddess of death; _Acca
Larentia_, the mother of the Lares (_Acca_ perhaps =
_Atta_, a child-word for mother, as Lippert suggests); _Mater
matuta_, "mother of the dawn," a goddess of child-birth, worshipped
especially by married women, and to whom there was erected a temple at
Care.
The mother-goddesses of Germany are quite numerous. Among those minor
ones cited by Grimm and Simrock, are: Haulemutter, Mutter Holle, the
Klagemutter or Klagemuhmen, Pudelmutter (a name applied to the goddess
Berchta), Etelmutter, Kornmutter, Roggenmutter, Mutterkorn, and the
interesting Buschgroszmutter, "bush grandmother," as the "Queen of the
Wood-Folk" is called. Here the mother-feeling has been so strong as to
grant to even the devil a mother and a grandmother, who figure in many
proverbs and folk-locutions. When the question is asked a Mecklenburger,
concerning a social gathering: "Who was there?" he may answer: "The
devil and his mother (_mom_)"; when a whirlwind occurs, the saying
is: "The Devil is dancing with his grandmother."
In China the position of woman is very low, and, as Mr. Douglas points
out: "It is only when a woman becomes a mother that she receives the
respect which is by right due to her, and then the inferiority of her
sex disappears before the requirements of filial love, which is the
crown and glory of China" (434. 125).
In Chinese cosmogony and mythology motherhood finds recognition. Besides
the great Earth-Mother, we meet with Se-wang-moo, the "Western Royal
Mother," a goddess of fairy-land, and the "Mother of Lightning," thunder
being considered the "father and teacher of all living beings."
Lieh-tze, a philosopher of the fifth century B.C., taught: "My body is
not my own; I am merely an inhabitant of it for the time being, and
shall resign it when I return to the 'Abyss Mother'" (434. 222, 225,
277).
In the Flowery Kingdom there is also a sect "who worship the goddess
Pity, in the form of a woman holding a child in her arms."
Among the deities and semi-deities of the Andaman Islanders are
_chan.a.e.lewadi_, the "mother of the race,"--Mother E.lewadi;
_chan.a.erep_, _chan.a.cha.ria_, _chan.a.te.liu_,
_chan.a.li.mi_, _chan.a.jar.a.ngud_, all inventors and
discoverers of foods and the arts. In the religious system of the
Andaman Islanders, _Pu.luga-_, the Supreme Being, by whom were
created "the world and all objects, animate and inanimate, excepting
only the powers of evil," and of whom it is said, "though his appearance
is like fire, yet he is (nowadays) invisible," is "believed to live in a
large stone house in the sky with a wife whom he created for himself;
she is green in appearance, and has two names, _chan.a.au.lola_
(Mother Freshwater Shrimp) and _chan.a.pa.lak-_--(Mother Eel); by
her he has a large family, all except the eldest being girls; these
last, known as _mo.ro-win--_ (sky-spirits or angels), are said to be
black in appearance, and, with their mother, amuse themselves from time
to time by throwing fish and prawns into the streams and sea for the use
of the inhabitants of the world" (498. 90). With these people also the
first woman was _chan.a.e.lewadi_ (Mother E-lewadi), the ancestress
of the present race of natives. She was drowned, while canoeing, and
"became a small crab of a description still named after her
_e.lewadi_" (498. 96):
Quite frequently we find that primitive peoples have ascribed the origin
of the arts or of the good things of life to women whom they have
canonized as saints or apotheosized into deities.
We may close our consideration of motherhood and what it has given the
world with the apt words of Zmigrodzki:--
"The history of the civilization (Kulturgeschichte) of our race, is, so
to speak, _the history of the mother-influence_. Our ideas of
morality, justice, order, all these are simply _mother-ideas_. The
mother began our culture in that epoch in which, like the man, she was
_autodidactic_. In the epoch of the Church Fathers, the highly
educated mother saved our civilization and gave it a new turn, and only
the highly educated mother will save us out of the moral corruption of
our age. Taken individually also, we can mark the ennobling, elevating
influence which educated mothers have exercised over our great men. Let
us strive as much as possible to have highly accomplished mothers,
wives, friends, and then the wounds which we receive in the struggle for
life will not bleed as they do now" (174. 367).
The history of civilization is the story of the mother, a story that
stales not with repetition. Richter, in his _Levana_, makes
eloquent appeal:--
"Never, never has one forgotten his pure, right-educating mother! On the
blue mountains of our dim childhood, towards which we ever turn and
look, stand the mothers who marked out for us from thence our life; the
most blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the warmest heart.
You wish, O woman, to be ardently loved, and forever, even till death.
Be, then, the mothers of your children."
Tennyson in _The Foresters_ uses these beautiful words: "Every man
for the sake of the great blessed Mother in heaven, and for the love of
his own little mother on earth, should handle all womankind gently, and
hold them in all honour." Herein lies the whole philosophy of life. The
ancient Germans were right, who, as Tacitus tells us, saw in woman
_sanctum aliquid et providum_, as indeed the Modern German
_Weib_ (cognate with our _wife_) also declares, the original
signification of the word being "the animated, the inspirited."
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE FATHER.
If the paternal cottage still shuts us in, its roof still screens us;
and with a father, we have as yet a prophet, priest, and king, and an
obedience that makes us free.--_Carlyle_.
To you your father should be as a god.--_Shakespeare_.
Our Father, who art in Heaven.--_Jesus_.
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.--_Pope_.
_Names of the Father._
_Father_, like _mother_, is a very old word, and goes back,
with the cognate terms in Italic, Hellenic, Teutonic, Celtic, Slavonic,
and Indo-Aryan speech, to the primitive Indo-European language, and,
like _mother_, it is of uncertain etymology.
An English preacher of the twelfth century sought to derive the word
from the Anglo-Saxon _fedan_, "to feed," making the "father" to be
the "feeder" or "nourisher," and some more modern attempts at
explanation are hardly better. This etymology, however incorrect, as it
certainly is, in English, does find analogies in the tongues of
primitive peoples. In the language of the Klamath Indians, of Oregon,
the word for "father" is _t'shishap_ (in the Modoc dialect,
_p'tishap_), meaning "feeder, nourisher," from a radical
_tshi_, which signifies "to give somebody liquid food (as milk,
water)." Whether there is any real connection between our word
_pap_,--with its cognates in other languages,--which signifies
"food for infants," as well as "teat, breast," and the child-word
_papa_, "father," is doubtful, and the same may be said of the
attempt to find a relation between _teat, tit_, etc., and the
widespread child-words for "father," _tat_, _dad_. Wedgewood
(Introd. to _Dictionary_), however, maintained that: "Words formed
of the simplest articulations, _ma_ and _pa_, are used to
designate the objects in which the infant takes the earliest
interest,--the mother, the father, the mother's breast, the act of
taking or sucking food." Tylor also points out how, in the language of
children of to-day, we may find a key to the origin of a mass of words
for "father, mother, grandmother, aunt, child, breast, toy, doll," etc.
From the limited supply of material at the disposal of the early
speakers of a language, we can readily understand how the same sound had
to serve for the connotation of different ideas; this is why
"_mama_ means in one tongue _mother_, in another
_father_, in a third, _uncle_; _dada_ in one language
_father_, in a second _nurse_, in another _breast_;
_tata_ in one language _father_, in another _son_," etc.
The primitive Indo-European _p-tr_, Skeat takes to be formed, with
the agent-suffix _tr_, from the radical _pa_, "to protect, to
guard,"--the father having been originally looked upon as the
"protector," or "guarder." Max Muller, who offers the same derivation,
remarks: "The father, as begetter, was called in Sanskrit
_ganitar_, as protector and supporter of his posterity, however,
_pitar_. For this reason, in the Veda both names together are used
in order to give the complete idea of 'father.' In like manner,
_matar_, 'mother,' is joined with _ganit_, 'genetrix,' and
this shows that the word _matar_ must have soon lost its
etymological signification and come to be a term, of respect and caress.
With the oldest Indo-Europeans, _matar_ meant 'maker,' from
_ma_, 'to form.'"
Kluge, however, seems to reject the interpretation "protector,
defender," and to see in the word a derivative from the "nature-sound"
_pa_. So also Westermarck (166. 86-94). In Gothic, presumably the
oldest of the Teutonic dialects, the most common word for "father" is
_atta_, still seen in the name of the far-famed leader of the Huns,
_Attila_, i.e. "little father," and in the _atti_ of modern
Swiss dialects. To the same root attach themselves Sanskrit _atta_,
"mother, elder sister"; Ossetic _adda_, "little father
(Vaterchen)"; Greek _arra_, Latin _atta_, "father"; Old
Slavonic _oti-ci_, "little father"; Old Irish _aite_,
"foster-father." _Atta_ belongs to the category of "nature-words"
or "nursery-words" of which our _dad_ (_daddy_) is also a
member.
Another member is the widespread _papa, pa._ Our word _papa_,
Skeat thinks, is borrowed, through the French, from Latin _papa_,
found as a Roman cognomen. This goes back in all probability to ancient
Greek, for, in the Odyssey (vi. 57), Nausicaa addresses her father as
[Greek: pappa phile], "dear _papa_." The Papa of German is also
borrowed from French, and, according to Kluge, did not secure a firm,
place in the language until comparatively late in the eighteenth
century.
In some of the Semitic languages the word for "father" signifies
"maker," and the same thing occurs elsewhere among primitive people
(166. 91).
As with "mother," so with "father"; in many languages a man (or a boy)
does not employ the same term as a woman (or a girl). In the Haida,
Okanak'en, and Kootenay, all Indian languages of British Columbia, the
words used by males and by females are, respectively: _kun, qat;
lEe'u, mistm; tito, so._
In many languages the word for "father," as is also the case with
"mother," is different when the parent is addressed from that used when
he is spoken of or referred to. In the Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Nootka,
Ntlakyapamuq, four Indian languages of British Columbia, the words for
"father" when addressed, are respectively _a'bo, ats, no'we, pap,_
and for "father" in other cases, _nEgua'at, au'mp, nuwe'k'so,
ska'tsa._ Here, again, it will be noticed that the words used in
address seem shorter and more primitive in character.
In the Chinantee language of Mexico, _nuh_ signifies at the same
time "father" and "man." In Gothic _aba_ means both "father" and
"husband" (492. 33). Here belongs also perhaps the familiar "father"
with which the New England housewife was wont to address her husband.
With many peoples the name "father" is applied to others than the male
parent of the child. The following remarks of McLennan, regarding the
Tamil and Telugu of India, will stand for not a few other primitive
tribes: "All the brothers of a father are usually called fathers, but,
in strictness, those who are older than the father are called _great
fathers_, and those who are younger, _little fathers_. With the
Puharies, all the brothers of a father are equally fathers to his
children." In Hawaii, the term "male parent" "applied equally to the
father, to the uncles, and even to distant relations." In Japan, the
paternal uncle is called "little father" and the maternal uncle "second
little father" (100. 389, 391).
A lengthy discussion of these terms, with a wealth of illustration from
many primitive languages, will be found in Westermarck (166. 86-94).
_Father-Right_.
Of the Roman family it has been said: "It was a community comprising men
and things. The members were maintained by adoption as well as by
consanguinity. The father was before all things the chief, the general
administrator. He was called father even when he had no son; paternity
was a question of law, not one of persons. The heir is no more than the
continuing line of the deceased person; he was heir in spite of himself
for the honour of the defunct, for the lares, the hearth, the manes, and
the hereditary sepulchre" (100. 423). In ancient Rome the
_paterfamilias_ and the _patina potestas_ are seen in their
extreme types. Letourneau remarks further: "Absolute master, both of
things and of people, the paterfamilias had the right to kill his wife
and to sell his sons. Priest and king in turn, it was he who represented
the family in their domestic worship; and when, after his death, he was
laid by the side of his ancestors in the common tomb, he was deified,
and helped to swell the number of the household gods" (100. 433).
Post thus defines the system of "father-right":--
"In the system of 'father-right' the child is related only to the father
and to the persons connected with him through the male line, but not
with his mother and the persons connected with him through the female
line. The narrowest group organized according to father-right consists
of the father and his children. The mother, for the most part, appears
in the condition of a slave to the husband. To the patriarchal family in
the wider sense belong the children of the sons of the father, but not
the children of his daughters; the brothers and sisters of the same
father, but not those merely related to the same mother; the children of
the brother of the same father, but not the children of the sisters of
the same father, etc. With every wife the relationship ceases every
time" (127. I. 24).
The system of father-right is found scattered over the whole globe. It
is found among the Indo-European peoples (Aryans of Asia, Germans,
Slavs, Celts, Romans), the Mongol-Tartar tribes, Chinese, Japanese, and
some of the Semitic nations; in northern Africa and scattered through
the western part of the continent, among the Kaffirs and Hottentots;
among some tribes in Australia and Polynesia and the two Americas (the
culture races).
The position of the father among those peoples with whom strict
mother-right prevails is thus sketched by Zmigrodski (174.206):--
"The only certain thing was motherhood and the maternal side of the
family,--mother, daughter, granddaughter, that was the fixed stem
continuing with certainty. Father, son, grandson, were only the leaves,
which existed only until the autumnal wind of death tore them away, to
hurl them into the abyss of oblivion. In that epoch no one said, 'I am
the son of such a father and the grandson of such a grandfather,' but 'I
am the son of such a mother and the grandson of such a grandmother.' The
inheritance went not to the son and grandson, but to the daughter and to
the granddaughter, and the sons received a dowry as do the daughters in
our society of to-day. In marriage the woman did not assume the name of
the man, but _vice versa._ The husband of a woman, although the
father of her children, was considered not so near a relative of them as
the wife's brother, their uncle."
Dr. Brinton says, concerning mother-right among the Indians of North
America (412. 48):--
"Her children looked upon her as their parent, but esteemed their father
as no relation whatever. An unusually kind and intelligent Kolosch
Indian was chided by a missionary for allowing his father to suffer for
food. 'Let him go to his own people,' replied the Kolosch, 'they should
look after him.' He did not regard a man as in any way related or bound
to his paternal parent."
In a certain Polynesian mythological tale, the hero is a young man, "the
name of whose father had never been told by his mother," and this has
many modern parallels (115. 97). On the Gold Coast of West Africa there
is a proverb, "Wise is the son that knows his own father" (127.1. 24), a
saying found elsewhere in the world,--indeed, we have it also in
English, and Shakespeare presents but another view of it when he tells
us: "It is a wise father that knows his own child."
In many myths and folk-and fairy-tales of all peoples the discovery by
the child of its parent forms the climax, or at least one of the chief
features of the plot; and we have also those stories which tell how
parents have been killed unwittingly by their own children, or children
have been slain unawares by their parents.
_Father-King_.
In his interesting study of "Royalty and Divinity" (75), Dr. von Held
has pointed out many resemblances between the primitive concepts "King"
and "God." Both, it would seem, stand in close connection with "Father."
To quote from Dr. von Held: "Fathership (Vaterschaft,
_patriarcha_), lordship (Herrentum), and kingship (Konigtum) are,
therefore (like _rex_ and [Greek: _Basileus_]), ideas not only
linguistically, but, to even a greater degree really, cognate, having
altogether very close relationship to the word and idea 'God.' Of
necessity they involve the existence and idea of a people, and therefore
are related not only to the world of faith, but also to that of
intellect and of material things."
The Emperor of China is the "father and mother of the empire," his
millions of subjects being his "children"; and the ancient Romans had no
nobler title for their emperor than _pater patrice_, the "father of
his country," an appellation bestowed in these later days upon the
immortal first President of the United States.
In the Yajnavalkya, one of the old Sanskrit law-books, the king is
bidden to be "towards servants and subjects as a father" (75. 122), and
even Mirabeau and Gregoire, in the first months of the States-General,
termed the king "le pere de tous les Franqais," while Louis XII. and
Henry IV. of France, as well as Christian III. of Denmark, had given to
them the title "father of the people." The name _pater patrice_ was
not borne by the Caesars alone, for the Roman Senate conferred the title
upon Cicero, and offered it to Marius, who refused to accept it. "Father
of his Country" was the appellation of Cosmo de' Medici, and the Genoese
inscribed the same title upon the base of the statue erected to Andrea
Doria. One of the later Byzantine Emperors, Andronicus Palaologus, even
went so far as to assume this honoured title. Nor has the name "Father
of the People" been confined to kings, for it has been given also to
Gabriel du Pineau, a French lawyer of the seventeenth century.
The "divinity that doth hedge a king" and the fatherhood of the
sovereign reach their acme in Peru, where the Inca was king, father,
even god, and the halo of "divine right" has not ceased even yet to
encircle the brows of the absolute monarchs of Europe and the East.
_Landesvater_ (Vater des Volkes) is the proudest designation of the
German Kaiser. "Little Father" is alike the literal meaning of
_Attila_, the name of the far-famed leader of the "Huns," in the
dark ages of Europe, and of _batyushka_, the affectionate term by
which the peasant of Russia speaks of the Czar.
_Nana_, "Grandfather," is the title of the king of Ashanti in
Africa, and "Sire" was long in France and England a respectful form of
address to the monarch.
Some of the aboriginal tribes of America have conferred upon the
President of the United States the name of the "Great Father at
Washington," the "Great White Father," and "Father" was a term they were
wont to apply to governors, generals, and other great men of the whites
with whom they came into contact.
The father as head of the family is the basis of the idea of
"father-king." This is seen among the Matchlapis, a Kaffir tribe, where
"those who own a sufficient number of cattle to maintain a family have
the right to the title of chief"; this resembles the institution of the
_pater familias_ in ancient Latium (100. 459,533).
Dr. von Held thus expresses himself upon this point: "The first, and one
may say also the last, naturally necessary society of man is the family
in the manifold forms out of which it has been historically developed.
Its beginning and its apex are, under given culture-conditions, the man
who founds it, the father. What first brought man experientially to
creation as a work of love was fatherhood. This view is not altered by
the fact that the father, in order to preserve, or, what is the same, to
continue to produce, to bring up, must command, force, punish. If the
family depends on no higher right, it yet appears as the first state,
and then the father appears not only as father, but also as king" (75.
119).
The occurrence to-day of "King" as a surname takes us back to a time
when the head of the family enjoyed the proud title, which the Romans
conferred upon Casar Augustus, _Pater et Princeps_, the natural
development from Ovid's _virque paterque gregis_.
The Romans called their senators _patres_, and we now speak of the
"city fathers," aldermen, _elder_men, in older English, and the
"fathers" of many a primitive people are its rulers and legislators. The
term "father" we apply also to those who were monarchs and chiefs in
realms of human activity other than that of politics. Following in the
footsteps of the Latins, who spoke of Zeno as _Pater stoicorum_, of
Herodotus as _Pater historioe_, and even of the host of an inn as
_Pater cenoe_, we speak of "fathering" an idea, a plot, and the
like, and denominate "father," the pioneer scientists, inventors, sages,
poets, chroniclers of the race.
From _pater_ the Romans derived _patrimonium_, patrimony,
"what was inherited from the father," an interesting contrast to
_matrimonium_; _patronus_, "patron, defender, master of
slaves"; _patria_ (_terra_), "fatherland,"--Ovid uses
_paterna terra_, and Horace speaks of _paternum flumen_;
_patricius_, "of fatherly dignity, high-born, patrician," etc. Word
after word in the classic tongues speaks of the exalted position of the
father, and many of these have come into our own language through the
influence of the peoples of the Mediterranean.
_Father-Priest_.
Said Henry Ward Beecher: "Look at home, father-priest, mother-priest;
your church is a hundred-fold heavier responsibility than mine can be.
Your priesthood is from God's own hands." The priesthood of the father
is widespread. Mr. Gomme tells us: "Certainly among the Hindus, the
Greeks, the Romans, and, so late down as Tacitus, the Germans, the
house-father was priest and judge in his own clan" (461.104). Max Muller
speaks to the same effect: "If we trace religion back to the family, the
father or head of the family is _ipso facto_ the priest. When
families grew into clans, and clans into tribes and confederacies, a
necessity would arise of delegating to some heads of families the
performance of duties which, from having been the spontaneous acts of
individuals, had become the traditional acts of families and clans"
(510.183). Africa, Asia, America, furnish us abundant evidence of this.
Our own language testifies to it also. We speak of the "Fathers of the
Church,"--_patres_, as they were called,--and the term "Father" is
applied to an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, just as in the
Romance languages of Europe the descendants of the Latin _pater_
(French _pere_, Spanish _padre_, Italian _padre_, etc.)
are used to denote the same personage. In Russian an endearing term for
"priest" is _batyushka_, "father dear"; the word for a
village-priest, sometimes used disrespectfully, is _pop_. This
latter name is identical with the title of the head of the great
Catholic Church, the "Holy Father," at Rome, viz. _papa_,
signifying literally "papa, father," given in the early days of Latin
Christianity, and the source of our word _Pope_ and its cognates in
the various tongues of modern Europe. The head of an abbey we call an
_abbot_, a name coming, through the Church-Latin _abbas_, from
the Syriac _abba_, "father"; here again recurs the correlation of
priest and father. It is interesting to note that both the words
_papa_ and _abba_, which we have just discussed, and which are
of such importance in the history of religion, are child-words for
"father," bearing evidence of the lasting influence of the child in this
sphere of human activity. Among the ancient Romans we find a _pater
patratus_, whose duty it was to ratify treaties with the proper
religious rites. Dr. von Held is of opinion that, "in the case of a
special priesthood, it is not so much the character of its members as
spiritual fathers, as their calling of servants of God, of servants of a
Father-God, which causes them to be termed fathers, papas" (75. 120).
_Father-God_.
Shakespeare has aptly said, in the words which Theseus addresses to the
fair Hermia:--
"To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it,"
and widespread indeed, in the childhood of the race, has been the belief
in the Fatherhood of God. Concerning the first parents of human kind the
ancient Hebrew Scripture declares: "And God created man in His own
image," and long centuries afterwards, in his memorable oration to the
wise men of Athens upon Mars' Hill, the Apostle Paul quoted with
approval the words of the Greek poet, Cleanthes, who had said: "For we
are all His off-spring." Epictetus, appealing to a master on behalf of
his slaves, asked: "Wilt thou not remember over whom thou rulest, that
they are thy relations, thy brethren by nature, the offspring of Zeus?"
(388.210).
At the battle of Kadshu, Rameses II., of Egypt, abandoned by his
soldiers, as a last appeal, exclaimed: "I will call upon thee, O my
father Amon!" (388. 209).
Many prophets and preachers have there been who taught to men the
doctrine of "God, the Father," but last and best of all was the "Son of
Man," the Christ, who taught his disciples the world-heard prayer: "Our
Father, who art in Heaven," who pro-claimed that "in my Father's house
are many mansions," and whose words in the agony of Gethsemane were:
"Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee; remove this cup from
me: howbeit not what I will, but what Thou wilt."
Between the Buddhist Kalmucks, with whom the newly married couple
reverently utter these words: "I incline myself this first time to my
Lord God, who is my father and my mother" (518. I. 423), and the deistic
philosophers of to-day there is a vast gulf, as there is also between
the idea of Deity among the Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala, where the
words for God _alom_ and _achalom_ signify respectively
"begetter of children," and "begetter of sons," and the modern Christian
concept of God, the Father, with His only begotten Son, the Saviour of
the world.
The society of the gods of human creation has everywhere been modelled
upon that of man. He was right who said Olympus was a Greek city and
Zeus a Greek father. According to D'Alviella: "The highest point of
development that polytheism could reach is found in the conception of a
monarchy or divine family, embracing all terrestrial beings, and even
the whole universe. The divine monarch or father, however, might still
be no more than the first among his peers. For the supreme god to become
the Only God, he must rise above all beings, superhuman as well as
human, not only in his power, but in his very nature" (388. 211).
Though the mythology of our Teutonic forefathers knew of the
"All-Father,"--the holy Odin,--it is from those children-loving people,
the Hebrews, that our Christian conception of "God the Father," with
some modifications, is derived. As Professor Robertson Smith has pointed
out, among the Semites we find the idea of the tribal god as father
strongly developed: "But in heathen religions the fatherhood of the gods
is a physical fatherhood. Among the Greeks, for example, the idea that
the gods fashioned men out of clay, as potters fashion images, is
relatively modern. The older conception is that the races of men have
gods for their ancestors, or are the children of the earth, the common
mother of gods and men, so that men are really of the same stock or kin
of the gods. That the same conception was familiar to the older Semites
appears from the Bible. Jeremiah describes idolaters as saying to a
stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.
In the ancient poem, Num. xxi. 29, the Moabites are called the sons and
daughters of Chemosh, and, at a much more recent date, the prophet
Malachi calls a heathen woman, 'the daughter of a strange god'" (535.
41-43).
Professor Smith cites also the evidence furnished by genealogies and
personal names: "The father of Solomon's ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, was
called _Abibaal_, 'my father is Baal'; Ben-Hadad, of Damascus, is
'the son of the god Hadad'; in Aramaan we find names like
_Barlaha_, 'son of God,' _Barba'shmin_, 'son of the Lord of
Heaven,' _Barate_, 'son of Ate,' etc." We have also that passage in
Genesis which tells how the "sons of God saw the daughters of men that
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose" (vi. 2),
while an echo of the same thought dwells with the Polynesians, who term
illegitimate children _tamarika na te Atua_, "children of the gods"
(458. 121). D'Alviella further remarks: "Presently these family
relations of the gods were extended till they embraced the whole
creation, and especially mankind. The confusion between the terms for
creating and begetting, which still maintained itself in half-developed
languages, must have led to a spontaneous fusion of the ideas of creator
and father." But there is another aspect of this question. Of the
Amazulu Callaway writes: "Speaking generally, the head of each house is
worshipped by the children of that house; for they do not know the
ancients who are dead, nor their laud-giving names, nor their names. But
their father whom they knew is the head by whom they begin and end in
their prayer, for they know him best, and his love for his children;
they remember his kindness to them whilst he was living; they compare
his treatment of them whilst he was living, support themselves by it,
and say, 'He will treat us in the same way now he is dead. We do not
know why he should regard others beside us; he will regard us only.'" Of
these people it is true, as they themselves say: "Our father is a great
treasure to us, even when he is dead" (417.144).
Here we pass over to ancestor worship, seen at its height in China,
whose great sage, Confucius, taught: "The great object of marriage is to
beget children, and especially sons, who may perform the required
sacrifices at the tombs of their parents" (434. 126).
In this connection, the following passage from Max Muller is of
interest: "How religious ideas could spring from the perception of
something infinite or immortal in our parents, grandparents, and
ancestors, we can see even at the present day. Among the Zulus, for
instance, _Unkulunkulu_ or _Ukulukulu_, which means the
great-great-grandfather, has become the name of God. It is true that
each family has its own _Unkulunkulu,_ and that his name varies
accordingly. But there is also an _Unkulunkulu_ of all men
(_unkulunladu wabantu bonke_), and he comes very near to being a
father of all men. Here also we can watch a very natural process of
reasoning. A son would look upon his father as his progenitor; he would
remember his father's father, possibly his father's grandfather. But
beyond that his own experience could hardly go, and therefore the father
of his own great-grandfather, of whom he might have heard, but whom he
had never seen, would naturally assume the character of a distant
unknown being; and, if the human mind ascended still further, it would
almost by necessity be driven to a father of all fathers, that is to a
creator of mankind, if not of the world" (510. 156).
Again we reach the "Father" of Pope's "Universal Prayer"--
"Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,"
having started from the same thought as the Hebrews in the infancy of
their race. An Eastern legend of the child Abraham has crystallized the
idea. It is said that one morning, while with his mother in the cave in
which they were hiding from Nimrod, he asked his mother, "Who is my
God?" and she replied, "It is I." "And who is thy God?" he inquired
farther. "Thy father" (547.69). Hence also we derive the declaration of
Du Vair, "Nous devons tenir nos peres comme des dieux en terre," and the
statement of another French writer, of whom Westermarck says: "Bodin
wrote, in the later part of the sixteenth century, that, though the
monarch commands his subjects, the master his disciples, the captain his
soldiers, there is none to whom nature has given any command except the
father, 'who is the true image of the great sovereign God, universal
father of all things'" (166. 238).
_Father-Sky._
"Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,"
sang the poet Herbert, unconsciously renewing an ancient myth. As many
cosmologies tell, Day and Dawn were born of the embraces of Earth and
Sky. Ushas, Eos, Aurora, is the daughter of heaven, and one story of the
birth is contained in the Maori myth of Papa and Rangi. Ushas, Max
Muller tells us, "has two parents, heaven and earth, whose lap she fills
with light" (510. 431). From Rangi, "Father-Sky," and Papa,
"Mother-Earth," say the Maoris of New Zealand, sprang all living things;
and, in like manner, the Chinese consider the Sky or Heaven,--Yang, the
masculine, procreative, active element,--to be the "father of all
things," while the Earth,--Yu, the feminine, conceiving, passive
element,--is the "mother of all things." From the union of these two
everything in existence has arisen, and consequently resembles the one
or the other (529. 107).
Among the primitive Aryans, the Sky, or Heaven God, was called "Father,"
as shown by the Sanskrit _Dyaus Pitar_, Greek _Zeus Patar_,
Latin _Jupiter_, all of which names signify "sky father." Dyaus is
also called _janitar_, "producer, father," and Zeus, the "eternal
father of men," the "father of gods and men, the ruler and preserver of
the world." In the Vedic hymns are invocations of Dyaus (Sky), as "our
Father," and of Prithivi (Earth), as "our Mother" (388. 210).
Dyaus symbolizes the "bright sky"; from the same primitive Indo-European
root come the Latin words _dies_ (day), _deus_ or _divus_
(god); the dark sombre vault of heaven is Varuna, the Greek [Greek:
_Ouranos_], Latin _Uranus_.
Other instances of the bridal of earth and sky,--of "mother earth," and
"father sky,"--are found among the tribes of the Baltic, the Lapps, the
Finns (who have Ukko, "Father Heaven," Akka, "Mother Earth"), and other
more barbaric peoples.
In Ashanti, the new deity, which the introduction of Christianity has
added to the native pantheon, is called _Nana Nyankupon_,
"Grandfather-sky" (438. 24).
The shaman of the Buryats of Alarsk prays to "Father Heaven"; in the
Altai Mountains the prayer is to
"Father Yulgen, thrice exalted,
Whom the edge of the moon's axe shuns,
Who uses the hoof of the horse.
Thou, Yulgen, hast created all men,
Who are stirring round about us,
Thou, Yulgen, hast endowed us with all cattle;
Let us not fall into sorrow!
Grant that we may resist the evil one!" (504. 70, 77).
We too have recollections of that "Father-Sky," whom our far-off
ancestors adored, the bright, glad, cheerful sky, the "ancestor of all."
Max Muller has summed up the facts of our inheritance in brief terms:--
"Remember that this _Dyaush Pitar_ is the same as the Greek [Greek:
_Zeus Patar_], and the Latin _Jupiter_, and you will see how
this one word shows us the easy, the natural, the almost inevitable
transition from the conception of the active sky as a purely physical
fact, to the _Father-Sky_ with all his mythological accidents, and
lastly to that Father in heaven whom Aschylus meant when he burst out in
his majestic prayer to Zeus, _whosoever he is_" (510. 410).
Unnumbered centuries have passed, but the "witchery of the soft blue
sky" has still firm hold upon the race, and we are, as of old, children
of "our Father, who art in Heaven."
_Father-Sea._
Montesinos tells us that Viracocha, "sea-foam," the Peruvian god of the
sea, was regarded as the source of all life and the origin of all
things,--world-tiller, world-animator, he was called (509. 316).
Xenophanes of Kolophon, a Greek philosopher of the sixth century B.C.,
taught that "the mighty sea is the father of clouds and winds and
rivers." In Greek mythology Oceanus is said to be the father of the
principal rivers of earth. Neptune, the god of the sea,--"Father
Neptune," he is sometimes called,--had his analogue in a deity whom the
Libyans looked upon as "the first and greatest of the gods." To Neptune,
as the "Father of Streams," the Romans erected a temple in the Campus
Martius and held games and feasts in his honour. The sea was also spoken
of as _pater aequoreus_.
_Father-River._
The name "Father of Waters" is assigned, incorrectly perhaps, to certain
American Indian languages, as an appellation of the Mississippi. From
Macaulay's "Lay of Horatius," we all know
"O Tiber, Father Tiber,
To whom the Romans pray,"
and "Father Thames" is a favourite epithet of the great English river.
_Father-Frost._
In our English nursery-lore the frost is personified as a mischievous
boy, "Jack Frost," to whose pranks its vagaries are due. In old Norse
mythology we read of the terrible "Frost Giants," offspring of Ymir,
born of the ice of Niflheim, which the warmth exhaled from the sun-lit
land of Muspelheim caused to drop off into the great Ginnunga-gap, the
void that once was where earth is now. In his "Frost Spirit" Whittier
has preserved something of the ancient grimness.
We speak commonly of the "Frost-King," whose fetters bind the earth in
winter.
In Russia the frost is called "Father Frost," and is personified as a
white old man, or "a mighty smith who forges strong chains with which to
bind the earth and the waters," and on Christmas Eve "the oldest man in
each family takes a spoonful of kissel (a sort of pudding), and then,
having put his head through the window, cries: 'Frost, Frost, come and
eat kissel! Frost, Frost, do not kill our oats! Drive our flax and hemp
deep into the ground'" (520.223-230).
Quite different is the idea contained in Grimm's tale of "Old Mother
Frost,"--the old woman, the shaking of whose bed in the making causes
the feathers to fly, and "then it snows on earth."
_Father Fire_.
Fire has received worship and apotheosis in many parts of the globe. The
Muskogee Indians of the southeastern United States "gave to fire the
highest Indian title of honour, _grandfather_, and their priests
were called 'fire-makers'" (529. 68). The ancient Aztecs called the god
of fire "the oldest of the gods, _Huehueteotl_, and also 'our
Father,' _Tota_, as it was believed that from him all things were
derived." He was supposed "to govern the generative proclivities and the
sexual relations," and he was sometimes called _Xiuhtecutli_, "'God
of the Green Leaf,' that is, of vegetable fecundity and productiveness."
He was worshipped as "the life-giver, the active generator of animate
existence,"--the "primal element and the immediate source of life"
(413). These old Americans were in accord with the philosopher,
Heraclitus of Ephesus, who held that "fire is the element, and all
things were produced in exchange for fire"; and Heraclitus, in the
fragments in which he speaks of "God," the "one wise," that which "knows
all things," means "Fire." In the rites of the Nagualists occurs a
"baptism by fire," which was "celebrated on the fourth day after the
birth of the child, during which time it was deemed essential to keep
the fire burning in the house, but not to permit any of it to be carried
out, as that would bring bad luck to the child," and, in the work of one
of the Spanish priests, a protest is made: "Nor must the lying-in women
and their assistants be permitted to speak of Fire as the father and
mother of all things, and the author of nature; because it is a common
saying with them that Fire is present at the birth and death of every
creature." It appears also that the Indians who followed this strange
cult were wont to speak of "what the Fire said and how the Fire wept"
(413. 45-46).
Among various other peoples, fire is regarded as auspicious to children;
its sacred character is widely recognized. In the Zend-Avesta, the
Bible of the ancient Persians, whose religion survives in the cult of
the Parsees, now chiefly resident in Bombay and its environs, we read of
Ahura-Mazda, the "Wise Lord," the "Father of the pure world," the "best
thing of all, the source of light for the world." Purest and most sacred
of all created things was fire, light (421. 32). In the Sar Dar, one of
the Parsee sacred books, the people are bidden to "keep a continual fire
in the house during a woman's pregnancy, and, after the child is born,
to burn a lamp [or, better, a fire] for three nights and days, so that
the demons and fiends may not be able to do any damage and harm." It is
said that when Zoroaster, the founder of the ancient religion of Persia,
was born, "a demon came at the head of a hundred and fifty other demons,
every night for three nights, to slay him, but they were put to flight
by seeing the fire, and were consequently unable to hurt him" (258. 96).
In ancient Rome, among the Lithuanians on the shores of the Baltic, in
Ireland, in England, Denmark, Germany, "while a child remained
unbaptized," it was, or is, necessary "to burn a light in the chamber."
And in the island of Lewis, off the northwestern coast of Scotland,
"fire used to be carried round women before they were churched, and
children before they were christened, both night and morning; and this
was held effectual to preserve both mother and infant from evil spirits,
and (in the case of the infant) from being changed."
In the Gypsy mountain villages of Upper Hungary, during the baptism of a
child, the women kindle in the hut a little fire, over which the mother
with the baptized infant must step, in order that milk may not fail her
while the child is being suckled (392. II. 21).
In the East Indies, the mother with her new-born child is made to pass
between two fires.
Somewhat similar customs are known to have existed in northern and
western Europe; in Ireland and Scotland especially, where children were
made to pass through or leap over the fire.
To Moloch ("King"), their god of fire, the Phoenicians used to sacrifice
the first-born of their noblest families. A later development of this
cult seems to have consisted in making the child pass between two fires,
or over or through a fire. This "baptism of fire" or "purification by
fire," was in practice among the ancient Aztecs of Mexico. To the second
water-baptism was added the fire-baptism, in which the child was drawn
through the fire four times (509. 653).
Among the Tarahumari Indians of the Mexican Sierra Madre, the
medicine-man "cures" the infant, "so that it may become strong and
healthy, and live a long life." The ceremony is thus described by
Lumholtz: "A big fire of corn-cobs, or of the branches of the
mountain-cedar, is made near the cross [outside the house], and the baby
is carried over the smoke three times towards each cardinal-point, and
also three times backward. The motion is first toward the east, then
toward the west, then south, then north. The smoke of the corn-cobs
assures him of success in agriculture. With a fire-brand the
medicine-man makes three crosses on the child's forehead, if it is a
boy, and four, if a girl" (107. 298).
Among certain South American tribes the child and the mother are
"smoked" with tobacco (326. II. 194).
With marriage, too, fire is associated. In Yucatan, at the betrothal,
the priest held the little fingers of bridegroom and bride to the fire
(509. 504), and in Germany, the maiden, on Christmas night, looks into
the hearth-fire to discover there the features of her future husband
(392. IV. 82). Rademacher (130a) has called attention to the great
importance of the hearth and the fireplace in family life. In the Black
Forest the stove is invoked in these terms: "Dear oven, I beseech thee,
if thou hast a wife, I would have a man" (130 a. 60). Among the White
Russians, before the wedding, the house of the bridegroom and that of
the bride are "cleansed from evil spirits," by burning a heap of straw
in the middle of the living-room, and at the beginning of the
ceremonies, after they have been elevated upon a cask, as "Prince" and
"Princess," the guests, with the wedding cake and two tapers in their
hands, go round the cask three times, and with the tapers held crosswise
burn them a little on the neck, the forehead, and the temples, so that
the hair is singed away somewhat. At church the wax tapers are of
importance: if they burn brightly and clearly, the young couple will
have a happy, merry married life; if feeble, their life will be a quiet
one; if they flicker, there will be strife and quarrels between them
(392 (1891). 161).
Writing of Manabozho, or Michabo, the great divinity of the Algonkian
tribes of the Great Lakes, Dr. D. G. Brinton says: "Michabo, giver of
life and light, creator and preserver, is no apotheosis of a prudent
chieftain, still less the fabrication of an idle fancy, or a designing
priestcraft, but, in origin, deeds, and name, the not unworthy
personification of the purest conceptions they possessed concerning the
Father of All" (409. 469).
To Agni, fire, light, "in whom are all the gods," the ancient Hindu
prayed: "Be unto us easy of access, as a father to his son" (388. 210),
and later generations of men have seen in light the embodiment of God.
As Max Muller says, "We ourselves also, though we may no longer use the
name of Morning-Light for the Infinite, the Beyond, the Divine, still
find no better expression than _Light_ when we speak of the
manifestations of God, whether in nature or in our mind" (510. 434).
In the Christian churches of to-day hymns of praise are sung to God as
"Father of Light and Life," and their neophytes are bidden, as of old,
to "walk as Children of Light."
_Father-Sun._
At the naming of the new-born infant in ancient Mexico, the mother thus
addressed the Sun and the Earth: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and
thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child, and guard it as your son." A
common affirmation with them was: "By the life of the Sun, and of our
Lady, the Earth" (529. 97).
Many primitive tribes have the custom of holding the newborn child up to
the sun.
Not a few races and peoples have called themselves "children of the
sun." The first of the Incas of Peru--a male and a female--were children
of the Sun "our Father," who, "seeing the pitiable condition of mankind,
was moved to compassion, and sent to them, from Heaven, two of his
children, a son and a daughter, to teach them how to do him honour, and
pay him divine worship "; they were also instructed by the sun in all
the needful arts of life, which they taught to men (529. 102). When the
"children of the Sun" died, they were said to be "called to the home of
the Sun, their Father" (100. 479).
The Comanche Indians, who worship the sun with dances and other rites,
call him _taab-apa_, "Father Sun," and the Sarcees speak of the sun
as "Our Father," and of the earth as "Our Mother" (412. 122, 72).
With the Piute Indians "the sun is the father and ruler of the heavens.
He is the big chief. The moon is his wife, and the stars are their
children. The sun eats his children whenever he can catch them. They
fall before him, and are all the time afraid when he is passing through
the heavens. When he (their father) appears in the morning, you see all
the stars, his children, fly out of sight,--go away back into the blue
of the above,--and they do not wake to be seen again until he, their
father, is about going to his bed" (485. I. 130).
Dr. Eastman says of the Sioux Indians: "The sun was regarded as the
father, and the earth as the mother, of all things that live and grow;
but, as they had been married a long time and had become the parents of
many generations, they were called the great-grandparents" (518 (1894).
89).
Widespread over the earth has been, and still is, the worship of the
sun; some mythologists, indeed, would go too far and explain almost
every feature of savage and barbarous religion as a sun-myth or as
smacking of heliolatry.
Imagery and figurative language borrowed from the consideration of the
aspect and functions of the great orb of day have found their way into
and beautified the religious thought of every modern Christian
community. The words of the poet Thomson:
"Prime cheerer light!
Of all material beings first and best!
Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker!"
find briefer expression in the simple speech of the dying Turner: "The
sun is God."
_Father-Earth_.
Though, in nearly every portion of the globe the apotheosis of earth is
as a woman, we find in America some evidences of a cult of the
terrestrial Father-God. Concerning the cave-worship of the Mexican
aborigines, Dr. Brinton says (413. 38, 50): "The intimate meaning of
this cave-cult was the worship of the Earth. The Cave-God, the Heart of
the Hills, really typified the Earth, the Soil, from whose dark recesses
flow the limpid streams and spring the tender shoots of the food-plants
as well as the great trees. To the native Mexican the Earth was the
provider of food and drink, the common Father of All; so that, to this
day, when he would take a solemn oath, he stoops to the earth, touches
it with his hand, and repeats the solemn formula: '_Cuix amo nechitla
in toteotzin?_ Does not our Great God see me?'"
_Father-Wind_.
Dr. Berendt, when travelling through the forests of Yucatan, heard his
Maya Indian guide exclaim in awe-struck tones, as the roar of a tornado
made itself heard in the distance: _He catal nohoch yikal nohoch
tat_, "Here comes the mighty wind of the Great Father." As Dr.
Brinton points out, this belief has analogues all over the world, in the
notion of the wind-bird, the master of breath, and the spirit, who is
father of all the race, for we learn also that "the whistling of the
wind is called, or attributed to, _tat acmo_, words which mean
'Father Strong-Bird'" (411. 175).
The cartography of the Middle Ages and the epochs of the great maritime
discoveries has made us familiar with the wind-children, offspring of
the wind-father, from whose mouths came the breezes and the storms, and
old Boreas, of whom the sailors sing, has traces of the fatherhood about
him. More than one people has believed that God, the Father, is Spirit,
breath, wind.
_Other Father-Gods_.
The ancient Romans applied the term _Pater_ to many of their gods
beside the great Jove. Vulcan was called _Lemnus Pater_, the
"Lemnian Father"; Bacchus, _Pater Lenaus_; Janus, the "early god of
business," is termed by Horace, _Matutinus Pater,_ "Early-morning
Father"; Mars is _Mars Pater,_ etc. The Guarayo Indians, of South
America, prayed for rain and bountiful harvests to "Tamoi, the
grandfather, the old god in heaven, who was their first ancestor and had
taught them agriculture" (100. 288).
The Abipones, of Paraguay, called the Pleiades their "Grandfather" and
"Creator." When the constellation was invisible, they said: "Our
Grandfather, Keebet, is ill" (509. 274, 284).
In his account of the folk-lore of Yucatan, Dr. Brinton tells us that
the giant-beings known as _Hbalamob,_ or _balams,_ are
sometimes "affectionately referred to as _yum balam,_ or 'Father
Balam.'" The term _yum_ is practically the equivalent of the Latin
_pater,_ and of the _"father,"_ employed by many primitive
peoples in addressing, or speaking of, their great male divinities (411.
176).
In his acute exposition of the philosophy of the Zuni Indians, Mr.
Gushing tells us (424. 11) that "all beings, whether deistic and
supernatural, or animistic and mortal, are regarded as belonging to one
system; and that they are likewise believed to be related by blood seems
to be indicated by the fact that human beings are spoken of as the
'children of men,' while _all_ other beings are referred to as 'the
Fathers,' the 'All-Fathers (A-ta-tchu),' and 'Our Fathers.'" The
"Priest'of the Bow," when travelling alone through a dangerous country,
offers up a prayer, which begins: "Si! This day, My Fathers, ye Animal
Beings, although this country be filled with enemies, render me
precious" (424. 41). The hunter, in the ceremonial of the "Deer
Medicine," prays: "Si! This day, My Father, thou Game Animal, even
though thy trail one day and one night hast (been made) round about;
however, grant unto me one step of my earth-mother. Wanting thy
life-blood, wanting that flesh, hence I address to thee good fortune,
address to thee treasure," etc. When he has stricken down the animal,
"before the 'breath of life' has left the fallen deer (if it be such),
he places its fore feet back of its horns, and, grasping its mouth,
holds it firmly, closely, while he applies his lips to its nostrils and
breathes as much wind into them as possible, again inhaling from the
lungs of the dying animal into his own. Then, letting go, he exclaims:
'Ah! Thanks, my father, my child. Grant unto me the seeds of earth
('daily bread') and the gift of water. Grant unto me the light of thy
favour, do" (424. 36).
Something of a like nature, perhaps, attaches to the bear-ceremonials
among the Ainu and other primitive peoples of northeastern Asia, with
whom that animal is held in great respect and reverence, approaching to
deification.
Of Po-shai-an-k'ia, "the God (Father) of the Medicine Societies, or
sacred esoteric orders of the Zunis," Mr. Gushing tells us: "He is
supposed to have appeared in human form, poorly clad, and therefore
reviled by men; to have taught the ancestors of the Zuni, Taos, Oraibi,
and Coconino Indians their agricultural and other arts; their systems of
worship by means of plumed and painted prayer-sticks; to have organized
their medicine societies, and then to have disappeared toward his home
in Shi-pa-pu-li-ma (from _shi-pa-a_ = mist, vapour; _u-lin_,
surrounding; and _i-mo-na_ = sitting-place of; 'The mist-enveloped
city'), and to have vanished beneath the world, whence he is said to
have departed for the home of the Sun. He is still the conscious auditor
of the prayers of his children, the invisible ruler of the spiritual
Shi-pa-pu-li-ma, and of the lesser gods of the medicine orders, the
principal 'Finisher of the Paths of our Lives.' He is, so far as any
identity can be established, the 'Montezuma' of popular and usually
erroneous Mexican tradition" (424. 16). Both on the lowest steps of
civilization and on the highest, we meet with this passing over of the
Father into the Son, this participation of God in the affairs and
struggles of men.
CHAPTER V.
THE NAME CHILD.
Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen
[Dear children have many names].--_German Proverb_.
Child or boy, my darling, which you will.--_Swinburne_.
Men ever had, and ever will have, leave
To coin new words well-suited to the age.
Words are like leaves, some wither every year,
And every year a younger race succeeds.--_Roscommon_.
_Child and its Synonyms_.
Our word _child_--the good old English term; for both _babe_
and _infant_ are borrowed--simply means the "product of the womb"
(compare Gothic _kilthei_, "womb"). The Lowland-Scotch dialect
still preserves an old word for "child" in _bairn_, cognate with
Anglo-Saxon _bearn_, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and Gothic
_barn_ (the Gothic had a diminutive _barnilo_, "baby"),
Sanskrit _bharna_, which signifies "the borne one," "that which is
born," from the primitive Indo-European root _bhr_, "to bear, to
carry in the womb," whence our "to _bear_" and the German
"ge-_baren_." _Son_, which finds its cognates in all the
principal Aryan dialects, except Latin, and perhaps Celtic,--the Greek
[Greek: yios] is for [Greek: syios], and is the same word,--a widespread
term for "male child, or descendant," originally meant, as the Old Irish
_suth_, "birth, fruit," and the Sanskrit _su_, "to bear, to
give birth to," indicate, "the fruit of the womb, the begotten"--an
expression which meets us time and again in the pages of the Hebrew
Bible. The words _offspring_, _issue_, _seed_, used in
higher diction, explain themselves and find analogues all over the
world. To a like category belong Sanskrit _garbha_, "brood of
birds, child, shoot"; Pali _gabbha_, "womb, embryo, child"; Old
High German _chilburra_, "female lamb"; Gothic _kalbo_,
"female lamb one year old"; German _Kalb_; English _calf_;
Greek [Greek: _delphus_], "womb"; whence [Greek: _adelphus_],
"brother," literally "born of the same womb." Here we see, in the words
for their young, the idea of the kinship of men and animals in which the
primitive races believed. The "brought forth" or "born" is also the
signification of the Niskwalli Indian _ba'-ba-ad_, "infant";
_de-bad-da_, "infant, son"; Maya _al_, "son or daughter of a
woman"; Cakchiquel 4_ahol_, "son," and like terms in many other
tongues. Both the words in our language employed to denote the child
before birth are borrowed. _Embryo_, with its cognates in the
modern tongues of Europe, comes from the Greek [Greek: _embruon_],
"the fruit of the womb before delivery; birth; the embryo, foetus; a
lamb newly born, a kid." The word is derived from _eu_, "within";
and _bruo_, "I am full of anything, I swell or teem with"; in a
transitive sense, "I break forth." The radical idea is clearly
"swelling," and cognates are found in Greek [Greek: _bruon_],
"moss"; and German _Kraut_, "plant, vegetable." _Foetus_ comes
to us from Latin, where it meant "a bearing, offspring, fruit; bearing,
dropping, hatching,--of animals, plants, etc.; fruit, produce,
offspring, progeny, brood." The immediate derivation of the word is
_feto_, "I breed," whence also _effetus_, "having brought
forth young, worn out by bearing, effete." _Feto_ itself is from an
old verb _feuere_, "to generate, to produce," possibly related to
_fui_ and our _be_. The radical signification of _foetus_
then is "that which is bred, or brought to be"; and from the same root
_fe_ are derived _feles_, "cat" (the fruitful animal);
_fe-num_, "hay"; _fe-cundus_, "fertile"; _fe-lix,_
"happy" (fruitful). The corresponding verb in Greek is [Greek:
_phuein_], "to grow, to spring forth, to come into being," whence
the following: [Greek: _phusis_], "a creature, birth,
nature,"--nature is "all that has had birth"; [Greek: _phuton_]
"something grown, plant, tree, creature, child"; [Greek: _phulae,
philon_] "race, clan, tribe,"--the "aggregate of those born in a
certain way or place"; [Greek: _phus_], "son"; [Greek:
_phusas_], "father," etc.
In English, we formerly had the phrase "to look _babies_ in the
eyes," and we still speak of the _pupil_ of the eye, the old
folk-belief having been able to assert itself in the every-day speech of
the race,--the thought that the soul looked out of the windows of the
eyes. In Latin, _pupilla pupila,_ "girl, pupil of the eye," is a
diminutive of _pupa_ (_puppa_), "girl, damsel, doll, puppet";
other related words are _pupulus_, "little boy"; _pupillus_,
"orphan, ward," our _pupil_; _pupulus_, "little child, boy";
_pupus_, "child, boy." The radical of all these is _pu_, "to
beget"; whence are derived also the following: _puer_, "child,
boy"; _puella_ (for _puerula_), a diminutive of _puer_,
"girl"; _pusus_, "boy"; _pusio_, "little boy,"
_pusillus_; "a very little boy"; _putus_, "boy";
_putillus_, "little boy"; _putilla_, "little girl,"--here
belongs also _pusillanimus_, "small-minded, boy-minded";
_pubis_, "ripe, adult"; _pubertas_, "puberty, maturity";
_pullus_, "a young animal, a fowl," whence our _pullet_. In
Greek we find the cognate words [Greek: polos] "a young animal," related
to our _foal, filly_; [Greek: polion], "pony," and, as some,
perhaps too venturesome, have suggested, [Greek: pais], "child," with
its numerous derivatives in the scientifical nomenclature and
phraseology of to-day. In Sanskrit we have _putra_, "son," a word
familiar as a suffix in river-names,--_Brahmaputra_, "son of
Brahma,"--_pota_, "the young of an animal," etc. Skeat thinks that
our word _boy_, borrowed from Low German and probably related to
the Modern High German _Bube_, whence the familiar "bub" of
American colloquial speech, is cognate with Latin _pupus_.
To this stock of words our _babe_, with its diminutive _baby_,
seems not akin. Skeat, rejecting the theory that it is a reduplicative
child-word, like _papa_, sees in it merely a modification
(infantine, perhaps) of the Celtic _maban_, diminutive of
_mab_, "son," and hence related to _maid_, the particular
etymology of which is discussed elsewhere.
_Infant_, also, is a loan-word in English. In Latin, _infans_
was the coinage of some primitive student of children, of some
prehistoric anthropologist, who had a clear conception of "infancy" as
"the period of inability to speak,"--for _infans_ signifies neither
more nor less than "not speaking, unable to speak." The word, like our
"childish," assumed also the meanings "child, young, fresh, new, silly,"
with a diminutive _infantulus_. The Latin word _infans_ has
its representatives in French and other Romance languages, and has given
rise to _enfanter_, "to give birth to a child," _enfantement_,
"labour," two of the few words relating to child-birth in which the
child is directly remembered. The history of the words _infantry_,
"foot-soldiers," and _Infanta_, "a princess of the blood royal" in
Spain (even though she be married), illustrates a curious development of
thought.
Our word _daughter_, which finds cognates in Teutonic, Slavonic,
Armenian, Zend, Sanskrit, and Greek, Skeat would derive from the root
_dugh_, "to milk," the "daughter" being primitively the "milker,"
--the "milkmaid,"--which would remove the term from the list of names
for "child" in the proper sense of the word. Kluge, however, with
justice perhaps, considers this etymology improbable.
A familiar phrase in English is "babes and sucklings," the last term of
which, cognate with German _Saugling_, meets with analogues far and
wide among the peoples of the earth. The Latin words for children in
relation to their parents are _filius_ (diminutive _filiolus_),
"son," and _filia_ (diminutive _filiola_), "daughter,"
which have a long list of descendants in the modern Neo-Latin or Romance
languages,--French _fils, fille, filleul_, etc.; Italian _figlio,
figlia_, etc. According to Skeat, _filius_ signified originally
"infant," perhaps "suckling," from _felare_, "to suck," the radical
of which, _fe_ (Indo-European _dhe_), appears also in
_femina_, "woman," and _femella_, "female," the "sucklers"
_par excellence_. In Greek the cognate words are [Greek:
_titthae_], "nurse," _thaelus_, "female," _thaelae_,
"teat," etc.; in Lithuanian, _dels_, "son." With _nonagan_,
"teat, breast," are cognate in the Delaware Indian language
_nonoshellaan_, "to suckle," _nonetschik_, "suckling," and
other primitive tongues have similar series.
The Modern High German word for child is _Kind_, which, as a
substantive, finds representatives neither in Gothic nor in early
English, but has cognates in the Old Norse _kunde_, "son," Gothic
_-kunds_, Anglo-Saxon _-kund_, a suffix signifying "coming
from, originating from." The ultimate radical of the word is the
Indo-European root _gen_ (Teutonic _ken_), "to bear, to
produce," whence have proceeded also _kin_, Gothic _kuni_;
_queen_, Gothic _qvens_, "woman"; _king_, Modern High
German _Konig_, originally signifying perhaps "one of high origin";
Greek _genos_ and its derivatives; Latin _genus, gens, gigno_;
Lithuanian _gentis_, "relative"; Sanskrit _janas_, "kin,
stock," _janus_, "creature, kin, birth," _jantu_, "child,
being, stock," _jata_, "son." _Kind_, therefore, while not the
same word as our _child_, has the same primitive meaning, "the
produced one," and finds further cognates in _kid_ and _colt_,
names applied to the young of certain animals, and the first of which,
in the slang of to-day, is applied to children also. In some parts of
Germany and Switzerland _Kind_ has the sense of _boy_; in
Thuringia, for example, people speak of _zwei Kinder und ein
Madchen,_ "two boys and a girl." From the same radical sprang the
Modern High German _Knabe_, Old High German _chnabo_, "boy,
youth, young fellow, servant," and its cognates, including our English
_knave_, with its changed meaning, and possibly also German
_Knecht_ and English _knight_, of somewhat similar import
originally.
To the same original source we trace back Greek [Greek:
_genetaer_], Latin _genitor_, "parent," and their cognates, in
all of which the idea of _genesis_ is prominent. Here belong, in
Greek: [Greek: _genesis_], "origin, birth, beginning"; [Greek:
_gynae_], "woman"; [Greek: _genea_], "family, race"; [Greek:
_geinomai_], "I beget, produce, bring forth, am born"; [Greek:
_gignomai_], "I come into a new state of being, become, am born."
In Latin: _gigno_, "I beget, bring forth"; _gens_, "clan,
race, nation,"--those born in a certain way; _ingens_, "vast, huge,
great,"--"not _gens_," _i.e._ "born beyond or out of its
kind"; _gentilis_, "belonging to the same clan, race, tribe,
nation," then, with various turns of meaning, "national, foreign,"
whence our _gentile, genteel, gentle, gentry,_ etc.; _genus_,
"birth, race, sort, kind"; _ingenium_, "innate quality, natural
disposition"; _ingeniosus_, "of good natural abilities, born
well-endowed," hence _ingenious; ingenuus_, "native, free-born,
worthy of a free man," hence "frank, _ingenuous_";
_progenies_, "descent, descendants, offspring, progeny";
_gener_, "son-in-law"; _genius_, "innate superior nature,
tutelary deity, the god born to a place," hence the _genius_, who
is "born," not "made"; _genuinus_, "innate, born-in,
_genuine_"; _indigena_, "native, born-there, indigenous";
_generosus_, "of high, noble birth," hence "noble-minded,
_generous_"; _genero_, "I beget, produce, engender, create,
procreate," and its derivatives _degenero, regenero_, etc., with
the many words springing from them. From the same radical _gen_
comes the Latin _(g)nascor_, "I am born," whose stem _(g)na_
is seen also in _natio_, "the collection of those born," or "the
birth," and _natura_, "the world of birth,"--like Greek [Greek:
_phnsis_],--for "nations" and "nature" have both "sprung into
being." The Latin _germen_ (our _germ_), which signified
"sprig, offshoot, young bud, sprout, fruit, embryo," probably meant
originally simply "growth," from the root _ker_, "to make to grow."
From the same Indo-European radical have come the Latin _creare_,
"to create, make, produce," with its derivatives _procreare_ and
_creator_, which we now apply to the Supreme Being, as the "maker"
or "producer" of all things. Akin are also _crescere_, "to come
forth, to arise, to appear, to increase, to grow, to spring, to be
born," and _Ceres_, the name of the goddess of agriculture (growth
and creation), whence our word _cereal_; and in Greek [Greek:
Kronos], the son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaa (Earth), [Greek: kratos],
"strength," and its derivatives ("democracy," etc.).
Another interesting Latin word is _pario_, "I bring forth,
produce," whence _parens_, "producer, parent," _partus_,
"birth, bearing, bringing forth; young, offspring, foetus, embryo of any
creature," _parturio, parturitio_, etc. _Pario_ is used alike
of human beings, animals, birds, fish, while _parturio_ is applied
to women and animals, and, by Virgil, even to trees,--_parturit
arbos_, "the tree is budding forth,"--and by other writers to objects
even less animate.
In the Latin _enitor_, "I bring forth or bear children or
young,"--properly, "I struggle, strive, make efforts,"--we meet with the
idea of "labour," now so commonly associated with child-bearing, and
deriving from the old comparison of the tillage of the soil and the
bearing of the young. This association existed in Hebrew also, and Cain,
the first-born of Adam, was the first agriculturist. We still say the
tree _bears_ fruit, the land _bears_ crops, is _fertile_,
and the most characteristic word in English belonging to the category in
question is "to _bear_" children, cognate with Modern High German
_ge-baren_, 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 tragt 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
child-birth, 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 _gor_, "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" _stotomish_, "woman" _slane_,
"girl" _chachas_ (_i.e._ "small") _slane_; 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 Jivaro, 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 _unsil_ "infant," Wintun
_cru-tut_ "infant," Niskwalli _cha 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.a'ela_, "male infant," and _k.a'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.a'uts_, "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 o-dire,_ i.e. 'he that has been begotten by
me,' and his daughter, _dar o-dire-pail-;_ while the mother makes
use of the word _dab e-tire,_ i.e. 'he whom I have borne,' for the
former, and _dab e-tire pail-_ for the latter; similarly, friends,
in speaking of children to their parents, say respectively, _ngar
o-dire,_ or _ngab e-tire_ (your son), _ngar o-dire-pail-,_
or _ngab e-tire-pail-_ (your daughter)" (498. 59).
In the Tonkawe Indian language of Texas, "to be born" is _nikaman
yekewa,_ literally, "to become bones," and in the Klamath, of Oregon,
"to give birth," is _nkacgi,_ from _nkak,_ "the top of the
head," and _gi,_ "to make," or perhaps from _kak'gi,_ "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: ._do'ra_.
2. If child turns out to be a boy, he is called: ._do'ra-o'ta_; if
a girl, ._do'ra-ka'ta_; these names (_o'ta_ and _ka'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: ._do'ra da'la_, and
the girl, _.do'ra-po'il'ola_.
4. When she reaches maturity, the girl is said to be _un-la-wi_, or
_a'ka-la-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 _cha'langa_, is in flower,
"._do'ra-po-ilola_ would become ._cha'garu do'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
_chan'a_ (madam or mother)._do'ra_; if childless, a woman has
to pass a few years of married life before she is called _chan'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 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 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._
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 Worterbuch_, 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 leche" 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 Bar,
Und wie mi Gott erschaffe hat,
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: _Tou
o'wuna tans ksEtctca'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 'cca '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 _Tulapurusha,
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 art weighed in
the balance, and found wanting" (and the analogue in Job xxxi. 6), has
been taken quite literally, and in Brittany, according to the Abbot of
Soissons, there was a Chapel of the Balances, "in which persons who came
to be cured miraculously, were weighed, to ascertain whether their
weight diminished when prayer was made by the monks in their behalf."
Brewer informs us that "Rohese, the mother of Thomas Becket, used to
weigh her boy every year on his birthday, against the money, clothes,
and provisions which she gave to the poor" (191.41). From Gregory of
Tours we learn that Charicus, King of the Suevi, when his son was ill,
"hearing of the miraculous power of the bones of St. Martin, had his son
weighed against gold and silver, and sent the amount to his sepulchre
and sanctuary at Tours" (236. 60).
Weighing of infants is looked upon with favour in some portions of
western Europe, and to the same source we may ultimately trace the
modern baby's card with the weight of the newcomer properly inscribed
upon it,--a fashion which bids fair to be a valuable anthropometric
adjunct. "Hefting the baby" has now taken on a more scientific aspect
than it had of yore.
The following curious custom of the eastern Eskimo is perhaps to be
mentioned here, a practice connected with their treatment of the sick.
"A stone weighing three or four pounds, according to the gravity of the
sickness, is placed by a matron under the pillow. Every morning she
weighs it, pronouncing meanwhile words of mystery. Thus she informs
herself of the state of the patient and his chances of recovery. If the
stone grows constantly heavier, it is because the sick man cannot
escape, and his days are numbered" (523. 39).
It is a far cry from Greenland to England, but there are connecting
links in respect of folk-practice. Mr. Dyer informs us that in the
parish church of Wingrove, near Ailesbury, as late as 1759, a certain
Mrs. Hammokes was accused of witchcraft, and her husband demanded the
"trial by the church Bible." So "she was solemnly conducted to the
parish church, where she was stript of all her clothes to her shift, and
weighed against the great parish Bible in the presence of all her
neighbours. The result was that, to the no small mortification of her
accuser, she outweighed the Bible, and was triumphantly acquitted of the
charge" (436. 307, 308).
How often has not woman, looked upon in the light of a child, been
subjected to the same practices and ceremonies!
_Primitive Measurements._
The etymology and original significance of our common English words,
_span_, _hand_, _foot_, _cubit_, _fathom_, and
their cognates and equivalents in other languages, to say nothing of the
self-explanatory _finger's breadth_, _arm's length_,
_knee-high_, _ankle-deep_, etc., go back to the same rude
anthropometry of prehistoric and primitive times, from which the classic
peoples of antiquity obtained their canons of proportion and symmetry of
the human body and its members. Among not a few primitive races it is
the child rather than the man that is measured, and we there meet with a
rude sort of anthropometric laboratory. From Ploss, who devotes a single
paragraph to "Measurements of the Body," we learn that these crude
measurements are of great importance in folk-medicine:--
"In Bohemia, the new-born child is usually measured by an old woman, who
measures all the limbs with a ribbon, and compares them with one
another; the hand, _e.g._, must be as long as the face. If the
right relations do not subsist, prayers and various superstitious
practices are resorted to in order to prevent the devil from injuring
the child, and the evil spirits are driven out of the house by means of
fumigation. In the case of sick children in Bohemia the measuring is
resorted to as a sympathetic cure. In other parts of Germany, on the
other hand, in Schleswig-Holstein, Thuringia, Oldenburg, it is thought
that measuring and weighing the new-born child may interfere with its
thriving and growth" (326. I. 302).
Sibree states that in Madagascar, at circumcision, the child is measured
and sprinkled with water (214. 6), and Ellis, in his history of that
island, gives the following details of the ceremony (_History of
Madagascar_, Vol. I. p. 182):--
"The children on whom the rite is to be performed are next led across
the blood of the animal just killed, to which some idea of sacredness is
attached. They are then placed on the west side of the house, and, as
they stand erect, a man holding a light cane in his hand, measures the
first child to the crown of the head, and at one stroke cuts off a piece
of the cane measured to that height, having first carefully dipped the
knife in the blood of the slaughtered sheep. The knife is again dipped
in the blood, and the child measured to the waist, when the cane is cut
to that height. He is afterwards measured to the knee with similar
results. The same ceremony is performed on all the children
successively. The meaning of this, if indeed any meaning can be attached
to it, seems to be the symbolical removal of all evils to which the
children might be exposed,--first from the head to the waist, then from
the waist to the knees, and finally, from the knees to the sole of the
foot."
The general question of the measurement of sick persons (not especially
children), and of the payment of an image or a rod of precious metal of
the height of a given person, or the height of his waist, shoulders,
knee, etc., of the person, in recompense for some insult or injury, has
been treated of by Grimm, Gaidoz, and Haberlandt. Gaidoz remarks (236.
74): "It is well known that in Catholic countries it is customary to
present the saints with votive offerings in wax, which are
representative of the sicknesses for which the saints are invoked; a wax
limb, or a wax eye, for instance, are representative of a sore limb or
of a sore eye, the cure of which is expected from the saint. Wax bodies
were offered in the same way, as we learn from a ludicrous story told by
Henri Estienne, a French writer of the sixteenth century. The story is
about a clever monk who made credulous parents believe he had saved
their child by his prayers, and he says to the father, 'Now your son is
safe, thanks to God; one hour ago I should not have thought you would
have kept him alive. But do you know what you are to do? You ought to
have a wax effigy of his own size made for the glory of God, and put it
before the image of the holy Ambrose, at whose intercession our Lord did
this favour to you.'" Even poorer people were in the habit of offering
wax candles of the height or of the weight of the sick person.
In 1888, M. Letourneau (299) called attention to the measurement of the
neck as a test of puberty, and even of the virginity of maidens. In
Brittany, "According to popular opinion, there is a close relation
between the volume of the neck and puberty, sometimes even the virginity
of girls. It is a common sight to see three young girls of uncertain age
measure in sport the circumference of the neck of one of them with a
thread. The two ends of this thread are placed between the teeth of the
subject, and the endeavour is made to make the loop of the thread pass
over the head. If the operation succeeds, the young girl is declared
'bonne a marier.'" MM. Hanoteau and Letourneau state that among the
Kabyles of Algeria a similar measurement is made of the male sex. In
Kabylia, where the attainment of the virile state brings on the
necessity of paying taxes and bearing arms, families not infrequently
endeavour to conceal the puberty of their young men. If such deceit is
suspected, recourse is had to the test of neck-measurement. Here again,
as in Brittany, if the loop formed by the thread whose two ends are held
in the teeth passes over the head, the young man is declared of age, and
enrolled among the citizens, whilst his family is punished by a fine. M.
Manouvrier also notes that the same test is also employed to discover
whether an adolescent is to be compelled to keep the fast of Rhamadan.
_Measurements of Limbs and Body._
M. Mahoudeau cites from Tillaux's _Anatomie topographique,_ and MM.
Perdrizet and Gaidoz in _Melusine_ for 1893, quote from the
_Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturette et cabalistique du Petit
Albert_ (1743) extracts relating to this custom, which is also
referred to by the Roman writers C. Valerius, Catullus, Vossius, and
Scaliger. The subject is an interesting one, and merits further
investigation. Ellis (42. 233) has something to say on the matter from a
scientific point of view. Grimm has called attention to the very ancient
custom of measuring a patient, "partly by way of cure, partly to
ascertain if the malady were growing or abating." This practice is
frequently mentioned in the German poems and medical books of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In one case a woman says of her
husband, "I measured him till he forgot everything," and another,
desirous of persuading hers that he was not of sound mind, took the
measure of his length and across his head. In a Zurich Ms. of 1393,
"measuring" is included among the unchristian and forbidden things of
sorcery. In the region about Treves, a malady known as night-grip
(_Nachtgriff_) is ascertained to be present by the following
procedure: "Draw the sick man's belt about his naked body lengthwise and
breadthwise, then take it off and hang it on a nail with the words 'O
God, I pray thee, by the three virgins, Margarita, Maria Magdalena, and
Ursula, be pleased to vouchsafe a sign upon the sick man, if he have the
nightgrip or no'; then measure again, and if the belt be shorter than
before, it is a sign of the said sickness." In the Liegnitz country, in
1798, we are told there was hardly a village without its _messerin_
(measuress), an old woman, whose _modus operandi_ was this: "When
she is asked to say whether a person is in danger from consumption, she
takes a thread and measures the patient, first from head to heel, then
from tip to tip of the outspread arms; if his length be less than his
breadth then he is consumptive; the less the thread will measure his
arms, the farther has the disease advanced; if it reaches only to the
elbow, there is no hope for him. The measuring is repeated from time to
time; if the thread stretches and reaches its due length again, the
danger is removed. The wise woman must never ask money for her trouble,
but take what is given." In another part of Germany, "a woman is stript
naked and measured with a piece of red yarn spun on a Sunday."
Sembrzycki tells us that in the Elbing district, and elsewhere in that
portion of Prussia, the country people are firmly possessed by the idea
that a decrease in the measure of the body is the source of all sorts of
maladies. With an increase of sickness the hands and feet are believed
to lose more and more their just proportional relations one with
another, and it is believed that one can determine how much measure is
yet to be lost, how long the patient has yet to live. This belief has
given rise to the proverbial phrase _das Maas verlieren_--"to lose
one's measure" (462. III. 1163-5).
Not upon adults alone, however, were these measurements carried out, but
upon infants, children, and youths as well. Even in the New World, among
the more conservative of the population of Aryan origin, these customs
still nourish, as we learn from comparatively recent descriptions of
trustworthy investigators. Professor J. Howard Gore, in the course of an
interesting article on "The Go-Backs," belief in which is current among
the dwellers in the mountain regions of the State of Virginia, tells us
that when some one has suggested that "the baby has the 'go-backs,'" the
following process is gone through: "The mother then must go alone with
the babe to some old lady duly instructed in the art or science of
curing this blighting disease. She, taking the infant, divests it of its
clothing and places it on its back. Then, with a yarn string, she
measures its length or height from the crown of the head to the sole of
the heel, cutting off a piece which exactly represents this length. This
she applies to the foot, measuring off length by length, to see if the
piece of yarn contains the length of the foot an exact number of times.
This operation is watched by the mother with the greatest anxiety, for
on this coincidence of measure depends the child's weal or woe. If the
length of the string is an exact multiple of the length of the foot,
nothing is wrong, but if there is a remainder, however small, the baby
has the go-backs, and the extent of the malady is proportional to this
remainder. Of course in this measuring, the elasticity of the yarn is
not regarded, nor repetitions tried as a test of accuracy" (244. 108).
Moreover, "the string with which the determination was made must be hung
on the hinge of a gate on the premises of the infant's parents, and as
the string by gradual decay passes away, so passes away the 'go-backs.'
But if the string should be lost, the ailment will linger until a new
test is made and the string once more hung out to decay. Sometimes the
cure is hastened by fixing the string so that wear will come upon it."
Professor Gore aptly refers to the Latin proverb _ex pede
Herculem_, which arose from the calculation of Pythagoras, who from
the _stadium_ of 6000 feet laid out by Hercules for the Olympian
games, by using his own foot as the unit, obtained the length of the
foot of the mighty hero, whence he also deduced his height. We are not
told, however, as the author remarks, whether or not Hercules had the
"go-backs."
Among the white settlers of the Alleghanies between southwestern Georgia
and the Pennsylvania line, according to Mr. J. Hampden Porter, the
following custom is in vogue: "Measuring an infant, whose growth has
been arrested, with an elastic cord that requires to be stretched in
order to equal the child's length, will set it right again. If the spell
be a wasting one, take three strings of similar or unlike colours, tie
them to the front door or gate in such a manner that whenever either are
opened there is some wear and tear of the cords. As use begins to tell
upon them, vigour will recommence" (480. VII. 116). Similar practices
are reported from Central Europe by Sartori (392 (1895). 88), whose
article deals with the folk-lore of counting, weighing, and measuring.
_Tests of Physical Efficiency._
That certain rude tests of physical efficiency, bodily strength, and
power of endurance have been and are in use among primitive peoples,
especially at the birth of children, or soon after, or just before, at,
or after, puberty, is a well-known fact, further testified to by the
occurrence of these practices in folk-tales and fairy-stories. Lifting
stones, jumping over obstacles, throwing stones, spears, and the like,
crawling or creeping through holes in stones, rocks, or trees, have all
been in vogue, and some of them survive even to-day in England and in
other parts of Europe as popular tests of puberty and virginity. Mr.
Dyer, in his _Church Lore Gleanings_, mentions the "louping," or
"petting" stone at Belford, in Northumberland (England), a stone "placed
in the path outside the church porch, over which the bridal pair with
their attendants must leap"--the belief is that "the bride must leave
all her pets and humours behind her when she crosses it." At
High-Coquetdale, according to Mr. Henderson, in 1868, a bride was made
to jump over a stick held by two groomsmen at the church door (436.
125). Another very curious practice is connected with St. Wilfrid's
"needle" at Ripon Cathedral--said to be an imitation of the Basilican
transenna. Through this passage maidens who were accused of unchastity
crept in order to prove their innocence. If they could not pass through,
their guilt was presumed. It is also believed that "poor palsied folk
crept through in the expectation of being healed." At Boxley Church in
Kent, there was a "small figure of St. Rumbold, which only those could
lift who had never sinned in thought or deed" (436. 312, 313).
At a marriage among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, the groom's
party essay feats like these: "Heavy weights are lifted; they try who is
the best jumper. A blanket with a hole in the centre is hung up, and men
walk up to it blindfolded from a distance of about twenty steps. When
they get near it they must point with their fingers towards the blanket,
and try to hit the hole. They also climb a pole, on top of which an
eagle's nest, or something representing an eagle's nest, is placed. The
winner of each game receives a number of blankets from the girl's
father. When the games are at an end, the groom's father distributes
blankets among the other party" (404. 43). This reminds us of the games
at picnics and social gatherings of our own people.
In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for January, 1895, S. O. Addy, in an
article entitled "English Surnames and Heredity," points out how the
etymologies give us some indications of the physical characteristics of
the persons on whom the names were conferred. In primitive times and
among the lower races names are even of more importance in this respect.
Clark says: "I have seen a baby not two days old snugly tied up in one
of these little sacks; the rope tied to the pommel of the saddle, the
sack hanging down alongside of the pony, and mother and child
comfortably jogging along, making a good day's march in bitter cold
winter weather, easily keeping up with a column of cavalry which was
after hostile Indians. After being carefully and firmly tied in the
cradle, the child, as a rule, is only taken out to be cleaned in the
morning, and again in the evening just before the inmates of a lodge go
to sleep; sometimes also in the middle of the day, but on the march only
morning and evening" (420. 57).
In his account of the habits of the Tarahumari Indians, Lumholtz
observes: "Heat never seems to trouble them. I have seen young babies
sleeping with uncovered heads on the backs of their mothers, exposed to
the fierce heat of the summer sun." The same writer tells us that once
he pulled six hairs at once from a sleeping child, "without causing the
least disturbance," and only when twenty-three had been extracted at
once did the child take notice, and then only scratched its head and
slept on (107. 297).
Colonel Dodge notes the following practice in vogue among the wild
Indians of the West:--
"While the child, either boy or girl, is very young, the mother has
entire charge, control, and management of it. It is soon taught not to
cry by a very summary process. When it attempts to 'set up a yell,' the
mother covers its mouth with the palm of her hand, grasps its nose
between her thumb and forefinger, and holds on until the little one is
nearly suffocated. It is then let go, to be seized and smothered again
at the first attempt to cry. The baby very soon comprehends that silence
is the best policy" (432.187).
Of the Indians of Lower California, who learn to stand and walk before
they are a year old, we are told on the authority of the missionary
Baegert: "When they are born they are cradled in the shell of a turtle
or on the ground. As soon as the child is a few months old, the mother
places it perfectly naked astraddle on her shoulders, its legs hanging
down on both sides in front. In this guise the mother roves about all
day, exposing her helpless charge to the hot rays of the sun and the
chilly winds that sweep over the inhospitable country" (306. 185).
_Sleep._
Curious indeed are some of the methods in use among primitive peoples to
induce sleep. According to Mr. Fraser, the natives of a village near the
banks of the Girree, in the Himalayan region of India, had the following
custom (_Quart. Rev._ XXIV. 109):--
"The mother, seizing the infant with both arms and aided by the knees,
gives it a violent whirling motion, that would seem rather calculated to
shake the child in pieces than to produce the effect of soft slumber;
but the result was unerring, and in a few seconds the child was fast
asleep."
Somewhat akin to this procedure is the practice our modern mothers and
nurses have of swinging the baby through a sort of semicircle in their
arms, accompanying it with the familiar song,--
"This way,
And that way," etc.
This song and action, their dolls doing duty as children, have been
introduced into the kindergarten, and even figure now in "doll-drills"
on the stage, and at church festivals and society entertainments.
Of the same village the author goes on to say:--
"Several straw sheds are constructed on a bank, above which a cold clear
stream is led to water their fields, and a small portion of this,
probably of three fingers' breadth, is brought into the shed by a hollow
stick or piece of bark, and falls from this spout into a small drain,
which carries it off about two feet below. The women bring their
children to these huts in the heat of the day, and having lulled them to
sleep and wrapt their bodies and feet warm in a blanket, they place them
on a small bench or tray horizontally, in such a way that the water
shall fall upon the crown of the head, just keeping the whole top wet
with its stream. We saw two under this operation, and several others
came in while we remained, to place their children in a similar way.
Males and females are equally used thus, and their sleep seemed sound
and unruffled."
_"Heroic Treatment."_
The Andamanese baby "within a few hours of its birth has its head shaved
and painted with _kovob_--(an ochre-mixture), while its diminutive
face and body are adorned with a design in _tiela-og_--(white
clay); this latter, as may be supposed, is soon obliterated, and
requires therefore to be constantly renewed." We are further informed
that before shaving an infant, "the mother usually moistens the head
with milk which she presses from her breast," while with older children
and adults water serves for this purpose (498. 114).
The "heroic treatment," meted out by primitive peoples to children, as
they approach puberty, has been discussed in detail by Ploss, Kulischer,
Daniels. Religion and the desire to attract the affection or attention
of the other sex seem to lie very close to the fundamental reasons for
many of these practices, as Westermarck points out in his chapter on the
"Means of Attraction." (166. 165-212). A divine origin is often ascribed
to these strange mutilations. "The Australian Dieyerie, on being asked
why he knocks out two front teeth of the upper jaw of his children, can
answer only that, when they were created, the Muranaura, a good spirit,
thus disfigured the first child, and, pleased at the sight, commanded
that the like should be done to every male or female child for ever
after. The Pelew Islanders believe that the perforation of the septum of
the nose is necessary for winning eternal bliss; and the Nicaraguans say
that their ancestors were instructed by the gods to flatten their
children's heads. Again, in Fiji it is supposed that the custom of
tattooing is in conformity with the appointment of the god Dengei, and
that its neglect is punished after death. A similar idea prevails among
the Kingsmill Islanders and Ainos; and the Greenlanders formerly
believed that the heads of those girls who had not been deformed by long
stitches made with a needle and black thread between the eyes, on the
forehead, and upon the chin, would be turned into train tubs and placed
under the lamps in heaven, in the land of souls" (165. 170, 171).
Were all the details of the fairy-tales true, which abound in every
land, the cruelty meted out to the child suspected of being a changeling
would surpass human belief. Hartland enumerates the following procedures
as having been in use, according to legend, to determine the justice of
the suspicion: Flinging the child on a dung-heap; putting in the oven;
holding a red-hot shovel before the child's face; heating a poker
red-hot to mark a cross on its forehead; heating the tongs red-hot to
seize it by the nose; throwing on, or into, the fire; suspending over
the fire in a pot; throwing the child naked on the glowing embers at
midnight; throwing into lake, river, or sea (258. 120-123). These and
many more figure in story, and not a few of them seem to have been
actually practised upon the helpless creatures, who, like the heathen,
were not supposed to call for pity or love. Mr. Hartland cites a case of
actual attempt to treat a supposed changeling in a summary manner, which
occurred no later than May 17,1884, in the town of Clonmel, Ireland. In
the absence of the mother of a three-year-old child (fancied by the
neighbours to be a changeling), two women "entered her house and placed
the child naked on a hot shovel, 'under the impression that it would
break the charm,'"--the only result being, of course, that the infant
was very severely burned (258. 121).
On the other hand, children of true Christian origin, infants who
afterwards become saints, are subject to all sorts of torment at the
hands of Satan and his angels, at times, but come forth, like the
"children" of the fiery furnace in the time of Daniel, in imitation of
whose story many of the hagiological legends have doubtless been put
forth, unscathed from fire, boiling water, roaring torrents, and other
perilous or deadly situations (191. 9,122).
CHAPTER VII.
THE BRIGHT SIDE OF CHILD-LIFE: PARENTAL AFFECTION.
These are my jewels.--_Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi)_.
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?--_Wordsworth_.
Children always turn towards the light.--_Hare_.
That I could bask in Childhood's sun
And dance o'er Childhood's roses!--_Praed_.
Grief fills the room up of my absent child.--_Shakespeare_.
_Parental Love_.
In his essay on _The Pleasures of Home_, Sir John Lubbock makes the
following statement (494. 102):--
"In the _Origin of Civilization_, I have given many cases showing
how small a part family affection plays in savage life. Here I will only
mention one case in illustration. The Algonquin (North America) language
contained no word for 'to love,' so that when the missionaries
translated the Bible into it they were obliged to invent one. What a
life, and what a language, without love!"
How unfortunately inaccurate, how entirely unjustifiable, such a
declaration is, may be seen from the study of the words for love in two
of the Algonkian dialects,--Cree and Chippeway,--which Dr. Brinton has
made in one of his essays, _The Conception of Love in some American
Languages_. Let us quote the _ipsissima verba_ (411. 415):--
(1) "In both of them the ordinary words for love and friendship are
derived from the same monosyllabic root, _sak_. On this, according
to the inflectional laws of the dialects, are built up the terms for the
love of man to woman, a lover, love in the abstract, a friend,
friendship, and the like. It is also occasionally used by the
missionaries for the love of man to God and of God to man."
(2) "The Cree has several words which are confined to parental and
filial love, and to that which the gods have for men."
(3) "In the Chippeway there is a series of expressions for family love
and friendship which in their origin carry us back to the same
psychological process which developed the Latin _amare_ from the
Sanscrit _sam_."
(4) "The highest form of love, however, that which embraces all men and
all beings, that whose conception is conveyed in the Greek [Greek:
_agapa_], we find expressed in both the dialects by derivatives
from a root different from any I have mentioned. It is in its dialectic
forms _kis_, _keche_, or _kiji_, and in its origin it is
an intensive interjectional expression of pleasure, indicative of what
gives joy. Concretely, it signifies what is completed, permanent,
powerful, perfected, perfect. As friendship and love yield the most
exalted pleasure, from this root the natives drew a fund of words to
express fondness, attachment, hospitality, charity; and from the same
worthy source they selected that adjective [_kije, kise_], which
they applied to the greatest and most benevolent divinity."
Surely this people cannot be charged with a lack of words for love,
whose language enables them so well to express its every shade of
meaning. Nay, they have even seen from afar that "God is Love," as their
concept of Michabo tells us they had already perceived that He was
"Light."
_Motherhood and Fatherhood_.
The nobility and the sanctity of motherhood have found recognition among
the most primitive of human races. A Mussulman legend of Adam and Eve
represents the angel Gabriel as saying to the mother of mankind after
the expulsion from Paradise: "Thou shalt be rewarded for all the pains
of motherhood, and the death of a woman in child-bed shall be accounted
as martyrdom" (547. 38). The natives of the Highlands of Borneo hold
that to a special hereafter, known as "Long Julan," go those who have
suffered a violent death (been killed in battle, or by the falling of a
tree, or some like accident), and women who die in child-birth; which
latter become the wives of those who have died in battle. In this
Paradise everybody is rich, with no need for labour, as all wants are
supplied without work (475. 199).
Somewhat similar beliefs prevailed in ancient Mexico and among the
Eskimo.
Even so with the father. Zoroaster said in the book of the law: "I name
the married before the unmarried, him who has a household before him who
has none, the father of a family before him who is childless" (125. I.
108). Dr. Winternitz observes of the Jews: "To possess children was
always the greatest good-fortune that could befall a Jew. It was deemed
the duty of every man to beget a son; the Rabbis, indeed, considered a
childless man as dead. To the Cabbalists of the Middle Ages, the man who
left no posterity behind him seemed one who had not fulfilled his
mission in this world, and they believed that he had to return once more
to earth and complete it" (385. 5).
Ploss (125. I. 108) and Lallemand (286. 21) speak in like terms of this
children-loving people. The Talmud ranks among the dead "the poor, the
leprous, the blind, and those who have no children," and the wives of
the patriarchs of old cheerfully adopted as their own the children born
to their husband by slave or concubine. To be the father of a large
family, the king of a numerous people, was the ideal of the true
Israelite. So, also, was it in India and China.
Ploss and Haberlandt have a good deal to say of the ridicule lavished
upon old maids and bachelors among the various peoples and races, and
Rink has recorded not a few tales on this head from the various tribes
of the Eskimo--in these stories, which are of a more or less trifling
and _outre_ character, bachelors are unmercifully derided (525.
465).
With the Chippeways, also, the bachelor is a butt for wit and sarcasm. A
tale of the Mississagas of Skugog represents a bachelor as "having gone
off to a certain spot and built a lot of little 'camps.' He built fires,
etc., and passed his time trying to make people believe he was not
alone. He used to laugh and talk, and pretend that he had people living
there." Even the culture-heroes Gluskap and Naniboju are derided in some
of the tales for not being married (166. 376).
According to Barbosa (67. 161), a writer of the early part of the
sixteenth century, the Nairs, a Dravidian people of the Malabar coast
(523. 159), believed that "a maiden who refused to marry and remained a
virgin would be shut out of Paradise." The Fijians excluded from
Paradise all bachelors; they were smashed to pieces by the god
Nangganangga (166. 137).
In the early chronicles and mythic lore of many peoples there are tales
of childless couples, who, in their quaint fashion, praying to the gods,
have been blest with the desired offspring. There is, however, no story
more pathetic, or more touching, than the Russian folk-tale cited by
Ralston, in which we read concerning an old childless couple (520. 176):
"At last the husband went into the forest, felled wood, and made a
cradle. Into this his wife laid one of the logs he had cut, and began
swinging it, crooning the while a tune beginning:--
'Swing, blockie dear, swing.'
After a little time, behold! the block already had legs. The old woman
rejoiced greatly, and began swinging anew, and went on swinging until
the block became a babe."
The rude prayers and uncouth aspirations of barbarous and savage
peoples, these crude ideas of the uncivilized races of men, when sounded
in their deepest depths, are the folk-expression of the sacredness of
the complete family, the forerunners of the poet's prayer:--
"Seigneur! preservez-moi, preservez ceux que j'aime,
Freres, parents, amis, et ennemis meme
Dans le mal triomphants,
De jamais voir, Seigneur! l'ete sans fleurs vermeilles,
La cage sans oiseaux, la ruche sans abeilles,
La maison sans enfants."
The affection of the ancient Egyptians for their children is noted by
Erman. The child is called "mine," "the only one," and is "loved as the
eyes of its parents"; it is their "beauty," or "wealth." The son is the
"fair-come" or "welcome"; at his birth "wealth comes." At the birth of a
girl it is said "beauty comes," and she is called "the lady of her
father" (441. 216-230). Interesting details of Egyptian child-life and
education may be read in the recently edited text of Amelineau (179),
where many maxims of conduct and behaviour are given. Indeed, in the
naming of children we have some evidence of motherly and fatherly
affection, some indication of the gentle ennobling influence of this
emotion over language and linguistic expression. True is it all over the
world:--
Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen.
[Dear children have many names.]
_The Dead Child_.
Parental affection is nowhere more strongly brought out than in the
lamentations for the dead among some of the lowest tribes of Californian
Indians. Of the Yokaia, Mr. Powers tells us (519. 166):--
"It is their custom to 'feed the spirits of the dead' for the space of
one year, by going daily to places which they were accustomed to
frequent while living, where they sprinkle pinole upon the ground. A
Yokaia mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to some
place where her little one played while alive, or to the spot where its
body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This is accompanied
by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling upon her little
one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and melancholy chant,
and dances with a wild, ecstatic swaying of the body."
Of the Miwok the same authority says:--
"The squaws wander off into the forest, wringing their arms piteously,
beating the air, with eyes upturned, and adjuring the departed one, whom
they tenderly call 'dear child,' or 'dear cousin' (whether a relative or
not), to return."
Of the Niskwaili Indians, of the State of Washington, Dr. Gibbs observes
(457. 205):--
"They go out alone to some place a little distant from the lodge or
camp, and in a loud, sobbing voice, repeat a sort of stereotyped
formula, as, for instance, a mother on the loss of her child:--
'Ah seahb! shed-da bud-dah ah-ta-bud! ad-de-dah!
Ah chief my child dead! alas!'
When in dreams they see any of their deceased friends this lamentation
is renewed."
Very beautiful and touching in the extreme is the conduct of the
Kabinapek of California:--
"A peculiarity of this tribe is the intense sorrow with which they mourn
for their children when dead. Their grief is immeasurable. They not only
burn up everything that the baby ever touched, but everything that they
possess, so that they absolutely begin life over again--naked as they
were born, without an article of property left" (519. 206).
Besides the custom of "feeding the spirits of the dead," just noticed,
there exists also among certain of the Californian Indians the practice
of "whispering a message into the ear of the dead." Mr. Powers has
preserved for us the following most beautiful speech, which, he tells
us, was whispered into the ear of a child by a woman of the Karok ere
the first shovelful of earth was cast upon it (519. 34): "O, darling, my
dear one, good-bye! Never more shall your little hands softly clasp
these old withered cheeks, and your pretty feet shall print the moist
earth around my cabin never more. You are going on a long journey in the
spirit-land, and you must go alone, for none of us can go with you.
Listen then to the words which I speak to you and heed them well, for I
speak the truth. In the spirit-land there are two roads. One of them is
a path of roses, and it leads to the Happy Western Land beyond the great
water, where you shall see your dear mother. The other is a path strewn
with thorns and briars, and leads, I know not whither, to an evil and
dark land, full of deadly serpents, where you wander forever. O, dear
child, choose you the path of roses, which leads to the Happy Western
Land, a fair and sunny land, beautiful as the morning. And may the great
Kareya [the Christ of these aborigines] help you to walk in it to the
end, for your little tender feet must walk alone. O, darling, my dear
one, good-bye!"
This whispering to the dead is found in other parts of the world. Mr.
Hose, describing the funeral of a boy, which he witnessed in Borneo,
says (475. 198):--
"As the lid of the coffin was being closed, an old man came out on the
verandah of the house with a large gong (Tetawak) and solemnly beat it
for several seconds. The chief, who was sitting near, informed me that
this was done always before closing the lid, that the relations of the
deceased might know that the spirit was coming to join them; and upon
his arrival in Apo Leggan [Hades] they would probably greet him in such
terms as these: 'O grandchild, it was for you the gong was beating,
which we heard just now; what have you brought? How are they all up
above? Have they sent any messages?'" The new arrival then delivers the
messages entrusted to him, and gives the cigarettes--which, rolled up in
a banana-leaf, have been placed in his hand--as proof of the truth of
what he says. These cigarettes retain the smell of the hand that made
them, which the dead relations are thought to be able to recognize.
_Motherhood and Infanticide_.
The intimate relationship recognized as existing between the infant and
its mother has been among many primitive peoples a frequent cause of
infanticide, or has been held at least to excuse and justify that crime.
Of the natives of Ashanti, Ellis says:--
"Should the mother die in childbirth, and the child itself be born
alive, it is customary to bury it with the mother.... The idea seems to
be that the child belongs to the mother, and is sent to accompany her to
_Srahmanadzi_ [ghost-land], so that her _srahman_ [ghost] may
not grieve for it" (438. 234). Post states that in Unyoro, when the
mother dies in childbirth, the infant is killed; among the Hottentots it
was exposed (if the mother died during the time of suckling, the child
was buried alive with her); among the Damara, "when poor women die and
leave children behind them, they are often buried with the mother" (127.
I. 287).
According to Collins and Barrington, among certain native tribes of
Australia, "when the mother of a suckling dies, if no adoptive parents
can be found, the child is placed alive in the arms of the corpse and
buried together with it" (125. II. 589). Of the Banians of Bombay,
Niebuhr tells us that children under eighteen months old are buried when
the mother dies, the corpse of the latter being burned at ebb tide on
the shore of the sea, so that the next tide may wash away the ashes
(125. II. 581). In certain parts of Borneo: "If a mother died in
childbirth, it was the former practice to strap the living babe to its
dead mother, and bury them both, together. 'Why should it live?' say
they. 'It has been the death of its mother; now she is gone, who will
suckle it?'" (481 (1893). 133).
In certain parts of Australia, "children who have caused their mother
great pain in birth are put to death" (127. I. 288), and among the
Sakalavas of Madagascar, the child of a woman dying in childbed is
buried alive with her, the reason given being "that the child may thus
be punished for causing the death of its mother" (125. II. 590).
As has been noted elsewhere, not a few primitive peoples have considered
that death, in consequence of giving birth to a child, gained for the
mother entrance into Paradise. But with some more or less barbarous
tribes quite a different idea prevails. Among the Ewe negroes of the
slave coast of West Africa, women dying in childbirth become
blood-seeking demons; so also in certain parts of Borneo, and on the
Sumatran island of Nias, where they torment the living, plague women who
are with child, and kill the embryo in the womb, thus causing abortion;
in Java, they make women in labour crazy; in Amboina, the Uliase and Kei
Islands, and Gilolo, they become evil spirits, torturing women in
labour, and seeking to prevent their successful delivery; in Gilolo, the
Kei group, and Celebes, they even torment men, seeking to emasculate
them, in revenge for the misfortune which has overtaken them (397.19).
Of the Doracho Indians of Central America, the following statement is
made: "When a mother, who is still suckling her child, dies, the latter
is placed alive upon her breast and burned with her, so that in the
future life she may continue to suckle it with her own milk" (125. II.
589). Powers remarks concerning the Korusi (Patwin) Indians of
California (519. 222): "When a woman died, leaving her infant very
young, the friends shook it to death in a skin or blanket. This was done
even with a half-breed child." Of the Nishinam Indians, the same
authority informs us: "When a mother dies, leaving a very young infant,
custom allows the relatives to destroy it. This is generally done by the
grandmother, aunt, or other near relative, who holds the poor innocent
in her arms, and, while it is seeking the maternal fountain, presses it
to her breast until it is smothered. We must not judge them too harshly
for this. They knew nothing of bottle nurture, patent nipples, or any
kind of milk whatever, other than the human" (519. 328).
Among the Wintun, also, young infants are known to have been buried when
the mother had died shortly after confinement (519. 232).
The Eskimo, Letourneau informs us, were wont to bury the little child
with its dead mother, for they believed that unless this were done, the
mother herself would call from _Killo_, the other world, for the
child she had borne (100. 147, 148).
_The Dead Mother._
To none of the saintly dead, to none of our race who have entered upon
the life beyond the grave, is it more meet to pray than to the mother;
folk-faith is strong in her power to aid and bless those left behind on
earth. That sympathetic relation existing between mother and child when
both are living, is often believed to exist when one has departed into
the other world. By the name _wa-hde ca-pi_, the Dakota Indians
call the feeling the (living) mother has for her absent (living) child,
and they assert that "mothers feel peculiar pain in their breasts when
anything of importance happens to their absent children, or when about
to hear from them. This feeling is regarded as an omen." That the
mother, after death, should feel the same longing, and should return to
help or to nourish her child, is an idea common to the folk-belief of
many lands, as Ploss (125. II. 589) and Zmigrodzki have noted.
"Amid the song of the angels," says Zmigrodzki (174. 142), "the plaint
of her child on earth reaches the mother's ear, and pierces her heart
like a knife. Descend to earth she must and does." In Brittany she is
said to go to God Himself and obtain permission to visit earth. Her
flight will be all the easier, if, before burial, her relatives have
loosed her hair. In various parts of Germany and Switzerland, the belief
is that for six weeks the dead mother will come at night to suckle her
child, and a pair of slippers or shoes are always put into the coffin
with the corpse, for the mother has to travel over thistles, thorns, and
sharp stones to reach her child. Widespread over Europe is this belief
in the return of the mother, who has died in giving life to her little
one. Till cock-crow in the morning she may suckle it, wash it, fondle
it; the doors open of themselves for her. If the child is being well
treated by its relatives, the mother rejoices, and soon departs; but if
it has been neglected, she attends to it, and waits till the last
moment, making audible her unwillingness to depart. If the neglect
continues, the mother descends to earth once more, and, taking the child
with her, returns to heaven for good. And when the mother with her
offspring approaches the celestial gates, they fly wide open to receive
them. Never, in the folk-faith, was entrance readier granted, never was
Milton's concept more completely realized, when
"Heaven open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,
On golden hinges moving."
In a modern Greek folk-song three youths plot to escape from Hades, and
a young mother, eager to return to earth to suckle her infant child,
persuades them to allow her to accompany them. Charon, however, suddenly
appears upon the scene and seizes them just as they are about to flee.
The beautiful young woman then appeals to him: "Let go of my hair,
Charon, and take me by the hand. If thou wilt but give my child to
drink, I will never try to escape from thee again" (125. II. 589).
The watchful solicitude of the mother in heaven over her children on
earth appears also in the Basque country (505. 73), and Ralston, noting
its occurrence in Russia, observes (520. 265):--
"Appeals for aid to a dead parent are of frequent occurrence in the
songs still sung by the Russian peasantry at funerals or over graves;
especially in those in which orphans express their grief, calling upon
the grave to open, and the dead to appear and listen and help. So in the
Indian story of Punchkin, the seven hungry, stepmother-persecuted
princesses go out every day and sit by their dead mother's tomb, and
cry, and say, 'Oh, mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children,
how unhappy we are,' etc., until a tree grows up out of the grave laden
with fruits for their relief. So, in the German tale, Cinderella is
aided by the white bird, which dwells in the hazel-tree growing out of
her mother's grave."
Crude and savage, but born of a like faith in the power of the dead
mother, is the inhuman practice of the people of the Congo, where, it is
said, "the son often kills his mother, in order to secure the assistance
of her soul, now a formidable spirit" (388. 81).
Heavy upon her offspring weighs the curse of a mother. Ralston, speaking
of the Russian folk-tales, says (520. 363):--
"Great stress is laid in the skazkas and legends upon the terrible power
of a parent's curse. The 'hasty word' of a father or a mother will
condemn even an innocent child to slavery among devils, and, when it has
once been uttered, it is irrevocable," The same authority states,
however, that "infants which have been cursed by their mothers before
their birth, or which are suffocated during their sleep, or which die
from any causes unchristened or christened by a drunken priest, become
the prey of demons," and in order to rescue the soul of such a babe from
the powers of evil "its mother must spend three nights in a church,
standing within a circle traced by the hand of a priest; when the cocks
crow on the third morning the demons will give her back her dead child."
_Fatherly Affection._
That the father, as well as the mother, feels for his child after death,
and appears to him, is an idea found in fairy-story and legend, but
nowhere so sweetly expressed as in the beautiful Italian belief that
"the kind, dear spirits of the dead relatives and parents come out of
the tombs to bring presents to the children of the family,--whatever
their little hearts most desire." The proverb,--common at Aci,--_Veni
me patri?--Appressu_, "Is my father coming?--By and by," used "when
an expected friend makes himself long waited for," is said to have the
following origin:--
"There was once a little orphan boy, who, in his anxiety to see his dead
father once again, went out into the night when the kind spirits walk,
and, in spite of all the fearful beating of his little heart, asked of
every one whom he met: _Veni me patri?_ and each one answered:
_Appressu_. As he had the courage to hold out to the end, he
finally had the consolation of seeing his father and having from him
caresses and sweetmeats" (449. 327).
Rev. Mr. Grill speaks highly of the affection for children of the
Polynesians. Following is the translation of a song composed and sung by
Rakoia, a warrior and chief of Mangaia, in the Hervey Archipelago, on
the death of his eldest daughter Enuataurere, by drowning, at the age of
fifteen (459. 32):--
"My first-born; where art thou?
Oh that my wild grief for thee,
Pet daughter, could be assuaged!
Snatched away in time of peace.
Thy delight was to swim,
Thy head encircled with flowers,
Interwoven with fragrant laurel
And the spotted-leaved jessamine.
Whither is my pet gone--
She who absorbed all my love--
She whom I had hoped
To fill with ancestral wisdom?
Red and yellow pandanus drupes
Were sought out in thy morning rambles,
Nor was the sweet-scented myrtle forgotten.
Sometimes thou didst seek out
Fugitives perishing in rocks and caves.
Perchance one said to thee,
'Be mine, be mine, forever;
For my love to thee is great.'
Happy the parent of such a child!
Alas for Enuataurere! Alas for Enuataurere!
Thou wert lovely as a fairy!
A husband for Enuataurere!
Each envious youth exclaims:
'Would that she were mine!'
Enuataurere now trips o'er the ruddy ocean.
Thy path is the foaming crest of the billow.
Weep for Enuataurere--
For Enuataurere."
This song, though, published in 1892, seems to have been composed about
the year 1815, at a _fete_ in honour of the deceased. Mr. Gill
justly calls attention to the beauty of the last stanza but one, where
"the spirit of the girl is believed to follow the sun, tripping lightly
over the crest of the billows, and sinking with the sun into the
underworld (Avaiki), the home of disembodied spirits."
Among others of the lower races of men, we find the father, expressing
his grief at the loss of a child, as tenderly and as sincerely as, if
less poetically than, the Polynesian chief, though often the daughter is
not so well honoured in death as is the son. Our American Indian tribes
furnish not a few instances of such affectionate lamentation.
Much too little has been made of the bright side of child-life among the
lower races. But from even the most primitive of tribes all traces of
the golden age of childhood are not absent. Powers, speaking of the
Yurok Indians of California, notes "the happy cackle of brown babies
tumbling on their heads with the puppies" (519. 51), and of the Wintun,
in the wild-clover season, "their little ones frolicked and tumbled on
their heads in the soft sunshine, or cropped the clover on all-fours
like a tender calf" (519. 231). Of the Pawnee Indians, Irving says (478.
214): "In the farther part of the building about a dozen naked children,
with faces almost hid by their tangled hair, were rolling and wrestling
upon the floor, occasionally causing the lodge to re-echo with their
childish glee." Mr. im Thurn, while among the Indians of Guiana, had his
attention "especially attracted by one merry little fellow of about five
years old, whom I first saw squatting, as on the top of a hill, on top
of a turtle-shell twice as big as himself, with his knees drawn up to
his chin, and solemnly smoking a long bark cigarette" (477. 39). Of the
wild Indians of the West, Colonel Dodge tells us: "The little children
are much petted and spoiled; tumbling and climbing, unreproved, over the
father and his visitors in the lodge, and never seem to be an annoyance
or in the way" (432. 189). Mr. MacCauley, who visited the Seminole
Indians of Florida, says: "I remember seeing, one day, one jolly little
fellow, lolling and rollicking on his mother's back, kicking her and
tugging away at the strings of beads which hung temptingly between her
shoulders, while the mother, hand-free, bore on one shoulder a log,
which, a moment afterwards, still keeping her baby on her back as she
did so, she chopped into small wood for the camp-fire." (496. 498).
There is a Zuni story of a young maiden, "who, strolling along, saw a
beautiful little baby boy bathing in the waters of a spring; she was so
pleased with his beauty that she took him home, and told her mother that
she had found a lovely little boy" (358. 544). Unfortunately, it turned
out to be a serpent in the end.
_Kissing_.
As Darwin and other authorities have remarked, there are races of men
upon the face of the earth, in America, in Africa, in Asia, and in the
Island world, who, when first seen of white discoverers, knew not what
it meant to kiss (499. 139). The following statement will serve for
others than the people to whom it refers: "The only kiss of which the
Annamite woman is cognizant is to place her nose against the man's
cheek, and to rub it gently up and down, with a kind of canine sniff."
Mantegazza tells us that Raden-Saleh, a "noble and intelligent" Javanese
painter, told him that, "like all Malays, he considered there was more
tenderness in the contact of the noses than of the lips," and even the
Japanese, the English of the extreme Orient, were once ignorant of the
art of kissing (499. 139).
Great indeed is the gulf between the Javanese artist and the American,
Benjamin West, who said: "A kiss from my mother made me a painter." To a
kiss from the Virgin Mother of Christ, legend says, St. Chrysostom owed
his "golden mouth." The story runs thus: "St. Chrysostom was a dull boy
at school, and so disturbed was he by the ridicule of his fellows, that
he went into a church to pray for help to the Virgin. A voice came from
the image: 'Kiss me on the mouth, and thou shalt be endowed with all
learning.' He did this, and when he returned to his schoolfellows they
saw a golden circle about his mouth, and his eloquence and brilliancy
astounded them" (347. 621).
Among the natives of the Andaman Islands, Mr. Man informs us, "Kisses
are considered indicative of affection, but are only bestowed upon
infants" (498. 79).
_Tears_.
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depths of some divine despair,
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking at the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more."
Thus sang the great English laureate, and to the simple folk--the
treasure-keepers of the lore of the ages--his words mean much.
Pliny, the Elder, in his _Natural History_, makes this statement:
"Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked
earth, does she [Nature] abandon to cries and lamentations;" the writer
of the _Wisdom of Solomon_, in the Apocrypha, expresses himself in
like manner: "When I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon
the earth, which is of like nature, and the first voice I uttered was
crying, as all others do." Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
bluntly resumes both: "He is born naked, and falls a-whining at the
first."
The Spaniards have a proverb, brusque and cynical:--
"Des que naei llore, y cada dia nace porque.
[I wept as soon as I was born, and every day explains why.]"
A quaint legend of the Jewish Rabbis, however, accounts for children's
tears in this fashion:--
"Beside the child unborn stand two angels, who not only teach it the
whole Tora [the traditional interpretation of the Mosaic law], but also
let it see all the joys of Paradise and all the torments of Hell. But,
since it may not be that a child should come into the world endowed with
such knowledge, ere it is born into the life of men an angel strikes it
on the upper lip, and all wisdom vanishes. The dimple on the upper lip
is the mark of the stroke, and this is why new-born babes cry and weep"
(385. 6).
Curiously enough, as if to emphasize the relativity of
folk-explanations, a Mussulman legend states that it is "the touch of
Satan" that renders the child "susceptible of sin from its birth," and
that is the reason why "all children cry aloud when they are born" (547.
249).
Henderson tells us that in the north and south of England "nurses think
it lucky for the child to cry at its baptism; they say that otherwise
the baby shows that it is too good to live." But there are those also
who believe that "this cry betokens the pangs of the new birth," while
others hold that it is "the voice of the Evil Spirit as he is driven out
by the baptismal water" (469. 16).
Among the untaught peasantry of Sicily, the sweet story goes that "Mary
sends an angel from Heaven one day every week to play with the souls of
the unbaptized children [in hell]; and when he goes away, he takes with
him, in a golden chalice, all the tears which the little innocents have
shed all through the week, and pours them into the sea, where they
become pearls" (449. 326).
Here again we have a borrowing from an older myth. An Eastern legend has
it that when Eden was lost, Eve, the mother of all men, wept bitterly,
and "her tears, which flowed into the ocean, were changed into costly
pearls, while those which fell on the earth brought forth all beautiful
flowers" (547. 34). In the classic myth, the pearl is said to have been
born of the tears of Venus, just as a Greek legend makes _alektron_
come from the tears of the sisters of Phaethon, the daughters of the
sun, and Teutonic story turns the tears of the goddess Freyja into drops
of gold (462. III. 1218).
In the _Kalevala_ we read how, after the wonderful harping of
Wainamoinen, the great Finnish hero, which enchanted beasts, birds, and
even fishes, was over, the musician shed tears of gratitude, and these,
trickling down his body and through his many garments, were transmuted
into pearls of the sea.
Shakespeare, in _King Henry V_., makes Exeter say to the King,--
"But all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears,"--
and the tears of the mother-god figures in the folk-lore of many lands.
The vervain, or verbena, was known as the "Tears of Isis," as well as
the "Tears of Juno,"--a name given also to an East Indian grass (_Coix
lacryma_). The lily of the valley, in various parts of Europe, is
called "The Virgin's Tears," "Tears of Our Lady," "Tears of St. Mary."
Zmigrodzki notes the following belief as current in Germany: "If the
mother weeps too much, her dead child comes to her at night, naked and
trembling, with its little shirt in its hand, and says: 'Ah, dearest
mother, do not weep! See! I have no rest in the grave; I cannot put on
my little shirt, it is all wet with your tears.'" In Cracow, the common
saying is, "God forbid that the tears of the mother should fall upon the
corpse of her child." In Brittany the folk-belief is that "the dead
child has to carry water up a hill in a little bucket, and the tears of
the mother increase its weight" (174. 141).
The Greeks fabled Eos, the dawn-goddess, to have been so disconsolate at
the death of Memnon, her son, that she wept for him every morning, and
her tears are the dewdrops found upon the earth. In the mythology of the
Samoans of the Pacific, the Heaven-god, father of all things, and the
Earth-goddess, mother of all things, once held each other in firm
embrace, but were separated in the long ago. Heaven, however, retains
his love for earth, and, mourning for her through the long nights, he
drops many tears upon her bosom,--these, men call dewdrops. The natives
of Tahiti have a like explanation for the thick-falling rain-drops that
dimple the surface of the ocean, heralding an approaching storm,--they
are tears of the heaven-god. The saying is:--
"Thickly falls the small rain on the face of the sea,
They are not drops of rain, but they are tears of Oro."
(Tylor, Early Hist. of Mankind, p. 334.)
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 illustrated, 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 anticipatory 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 illustration
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 coarse 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 fashions.
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',
'testicle,' and 'egg.' In Guarani _tub_ means 'father, spawn,
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 assume that the 'soul' of the
father proceeds each time into the son. In Karaibi we find exactly the
same idea; _imu_ is 'egg,' or 'testicles,'
or 'child.'"
Among other cognate tribes we find the same thoughts:--
In the Ipurucoto language _imu_ signifies "egg."
In the Bakairi language _imu_ signifies "testicles."
In the Tamanako language _imu_ signifies "father."
In the Makusi language _imu_ signifies "semen."
In several dialects _imu-ru_ signifies "child."
Dr. von den Steinen further observes: "Among the Bakairi '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 Bakairi there are no special words for 'son'
and 'daughter,' but a sex-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 pass 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 relationship 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
pricking 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
pass 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 associated
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 fashion: "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 mass 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,
shining sometimes from the depths of savagery and filling with sunshine
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 mediaval 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 passive 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.
CHILDHOOD THE GOLDEN AGE.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.--_Wordsworth_.
Die Kindheit ist ein Augenblick Gottes.--_Achim v. Arnim_.
Wahre dir den Kindersinn,
Kindheit bluht in Liebe bin,
Kinderzeit ist heil'ge Zeit,
Heidenkindheit--Christenheit.
--_B. Goltz_.
Happy those early days, when I Shined in my angel infancy.
--_Henry Vaughan_.
Childhood shall be all divine.--_B. W. Proctor_.
But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess,
Once in their life, fair Eden's simpleness.--_H. Coleridge_.
But to the couch where childhood lies,
A more delicious trance is given,
Lit up by rays from seraph eyes,
And glimpses of remembered heaven.--_W. M. Praed_.
O for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon!--_Whittier_.
_Golden Age_.
The English word _world_, as the Anglo-Saxon _weorold_,
Icelandic _verold_, and Old High German _weralt_ indicate,
signified originally "age of man," or "course of man's life," and in the
mind of the folk the life of the world and the life of man have run
about the same course. By common consent the golden age of both was at
the beginning, _ab ovo_. With Wordsworth, unlettered thousands have
thought:--
"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!"
_Die Kindheit ist ein Augenblick Gottes_, "childhood is a moment of
God," said Achim Ton Arnim, and Hartley Coleridge expresses the same
idea in other words:--
"But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess,
Once in their life, fair Eden's simpleness."
This belief in the golden age of childhood,--_die heilige
Kinderzeit_, the heaven of infancy,--is ancient and modern,
world-wide, shared in alike by primitive savage and nineteenth-century
philosopher. The peasant of Brittany thinks that children preserve their
primal purity up to the seventh year of their age, and, if they die
before then, go straight to heaven (174. 141), and the great Chinese
philosopher, linking together, as others have done since his time, the
genius and the child, declared that a man is great only as he preserves
the pure ideas of his childhood, while Coleridge, in like fashion tells
us: "Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the
power of manhood."
Everywhere we hear the same refrain:--
"Aus der Jugendzeit, aus der Jugendzeit,
Klingt ein Lied immerdar;
O wie liegt so weit, o wie liegt so weit,
Was mein einst war!"
The Paradise that man lost, the Eden from which he has been driven, is
not the God-planted Garden by the banks of Euphrates, but the "happy
days of angel infancy," and "boyhood's time of June," the childhood out
of which in the fierce struggle--for existence the race has rudely
grown, and back to which, for its true salvation, it must learn to make
its way again. As he, who was at once genius and child, said, nearly
twenty centuries ago: "Except ye turn and become as little children, ye
shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven."
When we speak of "the halcyon days of childhood," we recall an ancient
myth, telling how, in an age when even more than now "all Nature loved a
lover," even the gods watched over the loves of Ceyx and Halcyone. Ever
since the kingfisher has been regarded as the emblem, of lasting
fidelity in love. As Ebers aptly puts it: "Is there anywhere a sweeter
legend than that of the Halcyons, the ice-birds who love each other so
tenderly that, when the male becomes enfeebled by age, his mate carries
him on her outspread wings whithersoever he wills; and the gods desiring
to reward such faithful love cause the sun to shine more kindly, and
still the winds and waves on the 'Halcyon Days' during which these birds
are building their nests and brooding over their young" (390. II. 269).
Of a special paradise for infants, something has been said elsewhere. Of
Srahmanadzi, the other world, the natives of Ashanti say: "There an old
man becomes young, a young man a boy, and a boy an infant. They grow and
become old. But age does not carry with it any diminution of strength or
wasting of body. When they reach the prime of life, they remain so, and
never change more" (438. 157).
The Kalmucks believe that some time in the future "each child will speak
immediately after its birth, and the next day be capable of undertaking
its own management" (518. I. 427). But that blissful day is far off, and
the infant human still needs the overshadowing of the gods to usher him
into the real world of life.
_Guardian Angels and Deities._
Christ, speaking his memorable words about little children to those who
had inquired who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven, uttered the
warning: "See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say
unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my
Father which is in heaven." In the hagiology of the Christian churches,
and in the folk-lore of modern Europe, the idea contained in our
familiar expression "guardian angel" has a firm hold; by celestial
watchers and protectors the steps of the infant are upheld, and his mind
guided, until he reaches maturity, and even then the guardian spirit
often lingers to guide the favoured being through all the years of his
life (191. 8). The natives of Ashanti believe that special spirits watch
over girls until they are married, and in China there is a special
mother-goddess who guards and protects childhood.
Walter Savage Landor has said:--
"Around the child bend all the three
Sweet Graces,--Faith, Hope, Charity,"
and the "three Fates" of classic antiquity, the three Norns of
Scandinavian mythology, the three Sudieicky or fate-goddesses of the
Czechs of Bohemia, the three fate- and birth-goddesses of the other
Slavonic peoples, the three [Greek: _Moirai_] of Modern Greece, the
three Phatite of Albania, the three white ladies, three virgins, three
Mary's, etc., of German legend of to-day, have woven about them a wealth
of quaint and curious lore (326. I. 42-47).
The survival of the old heathen belief alongside the Christian is often
seen, as, e.g., at Palermo, in Sicily, where "the mother, when she lifts
the child out of the cradle, says aloud: _'Nuome di Dio_, In God's
name,' but quickly adds sotto voce: _'Cu licenzi, signuri mui_, By
your leave, Ladies.'" The reference is to the "three strange ladies,"
representing the three Fates, who preside over the destiny of human
beings.
Ploss has discussed at length the goddesses of child-birth and infancy,
and exhibited their relations to the growing, fertilizing, regenerative
powers of nature, especially the earth, sun, moon, etc.; the Hindu
_Bhavani_ (moon-goddess); the Persian _Anahita_; the Assyrian
_Belit_, the spouse of _Bel_; the Phoenician _Astarte_;
the Egyptian _Isis_; the Etruscan _Mater matuta_; the Greek
_Hera Eileithyia, Artemis_,; the Roman _Diana, Lucina, Juno_;
the Phrygian _Cybele_; the Germanic _Freia, Holla, Gude,
Harke_; the Slavonic _Siwa, Libussa, Zlata Baba_ ("the golden
woman"); the ancient Mexican _Itzcuinam, Yohmaltcitl, Tezistecatl_;
the Chibchan rainbow-goddess _Cuchavira_; the Japanese _Kojasi
Kwanon_, and hundreds more.
The number of gods and goddesses presiding over motherhood and childhood
is legion; in every land divine beings hover about the infant human to
protect it and assure the perpetuity of the race. In ancient Rome,
besides the divinities who were connected with generation, the embryo,
etc., we find, among others, the following tutelary deities of
childhood:--
_Parca_ or _Partula_, the goddess of child-birth;
_Diespiter_, the god who brings the infant to the light of day;
_Opis_, the divinity who takes the infant from within the bosom of
mother-earth; _Vaticanus_, the god who opens the child's mouth in
crying; _Cunina_, the protectress of the cradle and its contents;
_Rumina_, the goddess of the teat or breast; _Ossipaga_, the
goddess who hardens and solidifies the bones of little children;
_Carna_, the goddess who strengthens the flesh of little children;
_Diva potina_, the goddess of the drink of children; _Diva
edusa_, the goddess of the food of children; _Cuba_, the goddess
of the sleep of the child; _Levana_, the goddess who lifts the
child from the earth; _Statanus_, the god, and _Dea Statina_,
the goddess, of the child's standing; _Fabulinus_, the god of the
child's speech; _Abeona_ and _Adiona_, the protectresses of
the child in its goings out and its comings in; _Deus catus pater_,
the father-god who "sharpens" the wits of children; _Dea mens_, the
goddess of the child's mind; _Minerva_, the goddess who is the
giver of memory to the child; _Numeria_, the goddess who teaches
the child to count; _Voleta_, the goddess, and _Volumnus_ the
god, of will or wishing; _Venilia_, the goddess of hope, of "things
to come"; _Deus conus_, the god of counsel, the counsel-giver;
_Peragenor_ or _Agenona_, the deity of the child's action;
_Camona_, the goddess who teaches the child to sing, etc.
(398.188).
Here the child is overshadowed, watched over, taught and instructed by
the heavenly powers:--
"But to the couch where childhood lies
A more delicious trance is given,
Lit up by rays from seraph eyes,
And glimpses of remembered heaven."
In line with the poet's thought, though of a ruder mould, is the belief
of the Iroquois Indians recorded by Mrs. Smith: "When a living nursing
child is taken out at night, the mother takes a pinch of white ashes and
rubs it on the face of the child so that the spirits will not trouble,
because they say that a child still continues to hold intercourse with
the spirit-world whence it so recently came" (534. 69).
_Birth-Myths_.
President Hall has treated of "The Contents of Children's Minds on
Entering School" (252), but we yet lack a like elaborate and suggestive
study of "The Contents of Parents' Minds on Entering the Nursery." We
owe to the excellent investigation carried on by Principal Russell and
his colleagues at the State Normal School in Worcester, Mass., "Some
Records of the Thoughts and Reasonings of Children" (194), and President
Hall has written about "Children's Lies" (252a), but we are still
without a correspondingly accurate and extensive compilation of "The
Thoughts and Reasonings of Parents," and a plain, unbiassed register of
the "white lies" and equivoques, the fictions and epigrammatic myths,
with which parents are wont to answer, or attempt to answer, the
manifold questions of their tender offspring. From time immemorial the
communication between parent (and nurse) and child, between the old of
both sexes and little children, far from being yea and nay, has been
cast in the mould of the advice given in the German quatrain:--
"Ja haltet die Aequivocabula nur fest,
Sind sie doch das einzige Mittel,
Dem Kind die Wahrheit zu bergen und doch
Zu brauchen den richtigen Titel."
["Hold fast to the words that we equivoques call;
For they are indeed the only safe way
To keep from the children the truth away,
Yet use the right name after all."]
Around the birth of man centres a great cycle of fiction and myth. The
folk-lore respecting the provenience of children may be divided into two
categories. The first is represented by our "the doctor brought it,"
"God sent it," and the "van Moor" of the peasantry of North Friesland,
which may signify either "from the moor," or "from mother." The second
consists of renascent myths of bygone ages, distorted, sometimes, it is
true, and recast. As men, in the dim, prehistoric past, ascribed to
their first progenitors a celestial, a terrestrial, a subterranean, a
subaqueous origin, a coming into being from animals, birds, insects,
trees, plants, rocks, stones, etc.,--for all were then akin,--so, after
long centuries have rolled by, father, mother, nurse, older brother or
sister, speaking of the little one in whom they see their stock renewed,
or their kinship widened, resurrect and regild the old fables and
rejuvenate and reanimate the lore that lay sunk beneath the threshold of
racial consciousness. Once more "the child is father of the man"; his
course begins from that same spring whence the first races of men had
their remotest origins. George Macdonald, in the first lines of his poem
on "Baby" (337. 182):--
"Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the _everywhere_ into here,"
has expressed a truth of folk-lore, for there is scarcely a place in the
"everywhere" whence the children have not been fabled to come. Children
are said to come from heaven (Germany, England, America, etc.); from the
sea (Denmark); from lakes, ponds, rivers (Germany, Austria, Japan); from
moors and sand-hills (northeastern Germany); from gardens (China); from
under the cabbage-leaves (Brittany, Alsace), or the parsley-bed
(England); from sacred or hollow trees, such as the ash, linden, beech,
oak, etc. (Germany, Austria); from inside or from underneath rocks and
stones (northeastern Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, etc.). It is worthy
of note how the topography of the country, its physiographic character,
affects these beliefs, which change with hill and plain, with moor and
meadow, seashore and inland district. The details of these birth-myths
may be read in Ploss (326. I. 2), Schell (343), Sundermann (366).
Specially interesting are the _Kindersee_ ("child-lake"),
_Kinderbaum_ ("child-tree"), and _Kinderbrunnen_
("child-fountain") of the Teutonic lands,--offering analogies with the
"Tree of Life" and the "Fountain of Eternal Youth" of other ages and
peoples; the _Titistein_, or "little children's stone," and the
_Kindertruog_ ("child's trough") of Switzerland, and the
"stork-stones" of North Germany.
Dr. Haas, in his interesting little volume of folk-lore from the island
of Rugen, in the Baltic, records some curious tales about the birth of
children. The following practice of the children in that portion of
Germany is significant: "Little white and black smooth stones, found on
the shore, are called 'stork-stones.' These the children are wont to
throw backwards over their heads, asking, at the same time, the stork to
bring them a little brother or sister" (466 a. 144). This recalls
vividly the old Greek deluge-myth, in which we are told, that, after the
Flood, Deucalion was ordered to cast behind him the "bones of his
mother." This he interpreted to mean the "stones," which seemed, as it
were, the "bones" of "mother-earth." So he and his wife Pyrrha picked up
some stones from the ground and cast them over their shoulders,
whereupon those thrown by Deucalion became men, those thrown by Pyrrha,
women. Here belongs, also, perhaps, the Wallachian custom, mentioned by
Mr. Sessions (who thinks it was "probably to keep evil spirits away"),
in accordance with which "when a child is born every one present throws
a stone behind him."
On the island of Rugen erratic blocks on the seashore are called
_Adeborsteine_, "stork-stones," and on such a rock or boulder near
Wrek in Wittow, Dr. Haas says "the stork is said to dry the little
children, after he has fetched them out of the sea, before he brings
them to the mothers. The latter point out these blocks to their little
sons and daughters, telling them how once they were laid upon them by
the stork to get dry." The great blocks of granite that lie scattered on
the coast of Jasmund are termed _Schwansteine_, "swan-stones," and,
according to nursery-legend, the children to be born are shut up in
them. When a sister or brother asks: "Where did the little
_swan-child_"--for so babies are called--"come from?" the mother
replies: "From the swan-stone. It was opened with a key, and a little
swan-child taken out." The term "swan-child" is general in this region,
and Dr. Haas is inclined to think that the swan-myth is older than the
stork-myth (466 a. 143, 144).
Curious indeed is the belief of the Hidatsa Indians, as reported by Dr.
Matthews, in the "Makadistati, or house of infants." This is described
as "a cavern near Knife River, which, they supposed, extended far into
the earth, but whose entrance was only a span wide. It was resorted to
by the childless husband or the barren wife. There are those among them
who imagine that in some way or other their children come from the
Makadistati; and marks of contusion on an infant, arising from tight
swaddling or other causes, are gravely attributed to kicks received from
his former comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean home"
(433. 516).
In Hesse, Germany, there is a children's song (326. I. 9):--
Bimbam, Glockchen,
Da unten steht ein Stockchen,
Da oben steht ein golden Haus,
Da gucken viele schone Kinder raus.
The current belief in that part of Europe is that "unborn children live
in a very beautiful dwelling, for so long as children are no year old
and have not yet looked into a mirror, everything that comes before
their eyes appears to be gold." Here folk-thought makes the beginnings
of human life a real golden age. They are Midases of the eye, not of the
touch.
_Children's Questions and Parents' Answers._
Another interesting class of "parents' lies" consists in the replies to,
or comments upon, the questionings and remarks of children about the
ordinary affairs of life. The following examples, selected from
Dirksen's studies of East-Frisian Proverbs, will serve to indicate the
general nature and extent of these.
1. When a little child says, "I am hungry," the mother sometimes
answers, "Eat some salt, and then you will be thirsty, too."
2. When a child, seeing its mother drink tea or coffee, says, "I'm
thirsty," the answer may be, "If you're thirsty, go to Jack ter Host;
there's a cow in the stall, go sit under it and drink." Some of the
variants of this locution are expressed in very coarse language (431. I.
22).
3. If a child asks, when it sees that its parent is going out, "Am I not
going, too?" the answer is, "You are going along, where nobody has gone,
to Poodle's wedding," or "You are going along on Stay-here's cart." A
third locution is, "You are going along to the Kukendell fair"
(Kukendell being a part of Meiderich, where a fair has never been held).
In Oldenburg the answer is: "You shall go along on Jack-stay-at-home's
(Janblievtohus) cart." Sometimes the child is quieted by being told,
"I'll bring you back a little silver nothing (enn silwer Nickske)" (431.
I. 33).
4. If, when he is given a slice of bread, he asks for a thinner one, the
mother may remark, "Thick pieces make fat bodies" (431. I. 35).
5. When some one says in the hearing of the father or mother of a child
that it ought not to have a certain apple, a certain article of
clothing, or the like, the answer is, "That is no illegitimate child."
The locution is based upon the fact that illegitimate children do not
enjoy the same rights and privileges as those born in wedlock (431. I.
42).
6. Of children's toys and playthings it is sometimes said, when they are
very fragile, "They will last from twelve o'clock till midday"
(431.1.43).
7. When any one praises her child in the presence of the mother, the
latter says, "It's a good child when asleep" (431. I. 51).
8. In the winter-time, when the child asks its mother for an apple, the
latter may reply, "the apples are piping in the tree," meaning that
there are no longer any apples on the tree, but the sparrows are sitting
there, crying and lamenting. In Meiderich the locution is "Apples have
golden stems," _i.e._ they are rare and dear in winter-time (431.
I. 75).
9. When the child says, "I can't sit down," the mother may remark, "Come
and sit on my thumb; nobody has ever fallen off it" (_i.e._ because
no one has ever tried to sit on it) (431. I. 92).
10. When a lazy child, about to be sent out upon an errand, protests
that it does not know where the person to whom the message is to be sent
lives, and consequently cannot do the errand, the mother remarks
threateningly, "I'll show where Abraham ground the mustard," _i.e._
"I give you a good thrashing, till the tears come into your eyes (as
when grinding mustard)" (431. I. 105).
11. When a child complains that a sister or brother has done something
to hurt him, the mother's answer is, "Look out! He shall have water in
the cabbage, and go barefoot to bed" (431. I. 106).
12. Sometimes their parents or elders turn to children and ask them "if
they would like to be shown the Bremen geese." If the child says yes, he
is seized by the ears and head with both hands and lifted off the
ground. In some parts of Germany this is called "showing Rome," and
there are variants of the practice in other lands (431. II. 14).
13. When a child complains of a sore in its eye, or on its neck, the
answer is: "That will get well before you are a great-grandmother" (431.
II. 50).
14. When one child asks for one thing and another for something else,
the mother exclaims petulantly, "One calls out 'lime,' the other
'stones.'" The reference is to the confusion of tongues at Babel, which
is assumed to have been of such a nature that one man would call out
"lime," and another "stones" (431. II. 53).
15. When a child asks for half a slice of bread instead of a whole one,
the mother may say, "Who doesn't like a whole, doesn't like a half
either" (431. II. 43).
16. When a child says, "That is my place, I sat there," the reply is,
"You have no place; your place is in the churchyard" (_i.e._ a
grave) (431. II. 76).
When the child says "I will," the mother says threateningly, "Your
'will' is in your mother's pocket." It is in her pocket that she carries
the rope for whipping the child. Another locution is, "Your will is in
the corner" (_i.e._ the corner of the room in which stands the
broomstick) (431. II. 81).
These specimens of the interchange of courtesies between the child and
its parent or nurse might be paralleled from our own language; indeed,
many of the correspondences will suggest themselves at once. The deceits
practised in the Golden Age of childhood resemble those practised by the
gods in the Golden Age of the world, when divine beings walked the earth
and had intercourse with the sons and daughters of men.
"_Painted Devils_."
Even as the serpent marred the Eden of which the sacred legends of the
Semites tell, so in the folk-thought does some evil sprite or phantom
ever and anon intrude itself in the Paradise of childhood and seek its
ruin.
Shakespeare has well said:--
"Tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil,"
and the chronicle of the "painted devils," bogies, scarecrows, _et id
genus omne_, is a long one, whose many chapters may be read in Ploss,
Hartland, Henderson, Gregor, etc. Some of the "devils" are mild and
almost gentlemen, like their lord and master at times; others are
fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty; their number is almost infinite, and
they have the forms of women as well as of men.
Over a large portion of western Europe is found the nursery story of the
"Sand-Man," who causes children to become drowsy and sleepy; "the
sand-man is coming, the sand-man has put dust in your eyes," are some of
the sayings in use. By and by the child gets "so fast asleep that one
eye does not see the other," as the Frisian proverb puts it. When, on a
cold winter day, her little boy would go out without his warm mittens
on, the East Frisian mother says, warningly: _De Fingerbiter is
buten_, "the Finger-biter is outside."
Among the formidable evil spirits who war against or torment the child
and its mother are the Hebrew Lilith, the long-haired night-flier; the
Greek _Strigalai_, old and ugly owl-women; the Roman
_Caprimulgus_, the nightly goat-milker and child-killer, and the
wood-god Silvanus; the Coptic _Berselia_; the Hungarian
"water-man," or "water-woman," who changes children for criples or
demons; the Moravian _Vestice_, or "wild woman," able to take the
form of any animal, who steals away children at the breast, and
substitutes changelings for them; the Bohemian _Polednice_, or
"noon-lady," who roams around only at noon, and substitutes changelings
for real children; the Lithuanian and Old Prussian _Laume_, a
child-stealer, whose breast is the thunderbolt, and whose girdle is the
rainbow; the Servian _Wjeschtitza_, or witches, who take on the
form of an insect, and eat up children at night; the Russian "midnight
spirit," who robs children of rest and sleep; the Wendish "Old
mountain-woman"; the German (Brunswick) "corn-woman," who makes off with
little children looking for flowers in the fields; the Roggenmuhme (
"rye-aunt"), the _Tremsemutter_, who walks about in the cornfields;
the _Katzenveit_, a wood spirit, and a score of bogies called
_Popel, Popelmann, Popanz, Butz_, etc.; the Scotch "Boo Man,"
"Bogie Man," "Jenny wi' the Airn Teeth," "Jenny wi' the lang Pock "; the
English and American bogies, goblins, ogres, ogresses, witches, and the
like; besides, common to all peoples, a host of werwolves and vampires,
giants and dwarfs, witches, ogres, ogresses, fairies, evil spirits of
air, water, land, inimical to childhood and destructive of its peace and
enjoyment. The names, lineage, and exploits of these may be read in
Ploss, Grimm, Hartland, etc.
In the time of the Crusades, Richard Cour de Lion, the hero-king of
England, became so renowned among the Saracens that (Gibbon informs us)
his name was used by mothers and nurses to quiet their infants, and
other historical characters before and after him served to like purpose.
To the children of Rome in her later days, Attila, the great Hun, was
such a bogy, as was Narses, the Byzantian general (d. 568 A.D.), to the
Assyrian children. Bogies also were Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490 A.D.),
the Hungarian king and general, to the Turks; Tamerlane (Timur), the
great Mongolian conqueror (d. 1405 A.D.), to the Persians; and
Bonaparte, at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century, in various parts of the continent of Europe. These,
and other historical characters have, in part, taken the place of the
giants and bogies of old, some of whom, however, linger, even yet, in
the highest civilizations, together with fabulous animals (reminiscent
of stern reality in primitive times), with which, less seriously than in
the lands of the eastern world, childhood is threatened and cowed into
submission.
The Ponka Indian mothers tell their children that if they do not behave
themselves the Indacinga (a hairy monster shaped like a human being,
that hoots like an owl) will get them; the Omaha bogy is Icibaji; a
Dakota child-stealer and bogy is Anungite or "Two Faces" (433. 386,
473). With the Kootenay Indians, of south-eastern British Columbia, the
owl is the bogy with which children are frightened into good behaviour,
the common saying of mothers, when their children are troublesome,
being, "If you are not quiet, I'll give you to the owl" (203).
Longfellow, in his _Hiawatha_, speaks of one of the bogies of the
eastern Indians:--
"Thus the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rooked him in his linden cradle,
Stilled his fretful wail by saying,
'Hush! the naked bear will get thee!'"
Among the Nipissing Algonkian Indians, _koko_ is a child-word for
any terrible being; the mothers say to their children, "beware of the
_koko_." Champlain and Lescarbot, the early chroniclers of Canada,
mention a terrible creature (concerning which tales were told to
frighten children) called _gougou_, supposed to dwell on an island
in the Baie des Chaleurs (200. 239). Among the bogies of the Mayas of
Yucatan, Dr. Brinton mentions: the _balams_ (giant beings of the
night), who carry off children; the _culcalkin_, or "neckless
priest"; besides giants and witches galore (411. 174, 177).
Among the Gualala Indians of California, we find the "devil-dance,"
which Powers compares to the _haberfeldtreiben_ of the Bavarian
peasants,--an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the
women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances
are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the
shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching from the
arm-pits down to the mid-thighs, zebra-painted on his breast and legs
with black stripes, bear-skin shako on his head, and his arms stretched
out at full length along a staff passing behind his neck. Accoutred in
this harlequin rig, he dashes at the squaws, capering, dancing,
whooping; and they and the children flee for life, keeping several
hundred yards between him and themselves." It is believed that, if they
were even to touch his stick, their children would die (519. 194).
Among the Patwin, Nishinam, and Pomo Indians, somewhat similar practices
are in vogue (519. 157, 160, 225). From the golden age of childhood,
with its divinities and its demons, we may now pass to the consideration
of more special topics concerning the young of the races of men.
CHAPTER IX.
CHILDREN'S FOOD.
Der Mensch ist, was er isst.--_Feuerbach_.
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.--_Coleridge_.
Man did eat angels' food.--_Psalm_ ixxviii. 25.
_Honey_.
_Der Mensch ist, was er isst_,--"man is what he eats,"--says
Feuerbach, and there were food-philosophies long before his time. Among
primitive peoples, the food of the child often smacks of the Golden Age.
Tennyson, in _Eleanore_, sings:--
"Or, the yellow-banded bees,
Through half-open lattices
Coming in the scented breeze,
Fed thee, a child lying alone,
With white honey, in fairy gardens cull'd--
A glorious child dreaming alone,
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,
With the hum of swarming bees
Into dreamful slumber lull'd."
This recalls the story of Cretan Zeus, fed, when an infant, by the
nymphs in a cave on Mount Ida with the milk of the goat Amalthaa and
honey brought by the bees of the mountain.
In the sacred books of the ancient Hindus we read: "The father puts his
mouth to the right ear of the new-born babe, and murmurs three times,
'Speech! Speech!' Then he gives it a name. Then he mixes clotted milk,
honey, and butter, and feeds the babe with it out of pure gold"
(460.129). Among the ancient Frisians and some other Germanic tribes,
the father had the right to put to death or expose his child so long as
it had not taken food; but "so soon as the infant had drunk milk and
eaten honey he could not be put to death by his parents" (286. 69). The
custom of giving the new-born child honey to taste is referred to in
German counting-out rhymes, and the ancient Germans used to rub honey in
the mouth of the new-born child. The heathen Czechs used to drop honey
upon the child's lips, and in the Eastern Church it was formerly the
custom to give the baptized child milk and honey to taste (392. II. 35).
When the Jewish child, in the Middle Ages, first went to school, one of
the ceremonial observances was to have him lick a slate which had been
smeared with honey, and upon which the alphabet, two Bible verses, and
the words "The Tora shall be my calling" were written; this custom is
interestingly explanative of the passage in Ezekiel (iii. 3) where we
read "Then I did eat it [the roll of a book given the prophet by God];
and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness." There were also given to
the child sweet cakes upon which Bible verses were written. Among the
Jews of Galicia, before a babe is placed in the cradle for the first
time, it is customary to strew into the latter little pieces of
honey-comb. Among the Wotjaks we find the curious belief that those who,
in eating honey, do not smear their mouth and hands with it, will die.
With children of an older growth,--the second Golden Age,--honey and
cakes again appear. Magyar maidens at the new moon steal honey and
cakes, cook them, and mix a part in the food of the youth of their
desires; among the White Russians, the bridal couple are fed honey with
a spoon. Even with us "the first sweet month of matrimony," after the
"bless you, my children" has been spoken by parents, church, and state,
is called the "honey-moon," for our Teutonic ancestors were in the habit
of drinking honey-wine or mead for the space of thirty days after
marriage (392. IV. 118,211). In wedding-feasts the honey appears again,
and, as Westermarck observes, the meal partaken of by the bride and
bridegroom practically constitutes the marriage-ceremony among the
Navajos, Santal, Malays, Hovas, and other primitive peoples (166. 419).
In Iceland, in ancient times, "the food of sucklings was sweetened by
honey," and "in the mouths of weakly children a slice of meat was placed
at which they sucked." Among other interesting items from Scandinavia,
Ploss (326. II. 182) gives the following: "In Iceland, if the child has
been suckled eight (at most, fourteen) days, it is henceforth placed
upon the ground; near it is put a vessel with luke-warm whey, in which a
reed or a quill is stuck, and a little bread placed before it. If the
child should wake and show signs of hunger, he is turned towards the
vessel, and the reed is placed in his mouth. When the child is nine
months old, it must eat of the same food as its parents do."
In Shropshire, England, the first food given a child is a spoonful of
sugar and butter, and, in the Highlands of Scotland, "at the birth of an
infant the nurse takes a green stick of ash, one end of which she puts
into the fire, and, while it is burning, receives in a spoon the sap
that oozes from the other, which she administers to the child as its
first food." This recalls the sap of the sacred ash of Scandinavian
mythology. Solinus states that the ancient Irish mother "put the first
food of her newborn son on the sword of her husband, and, lightly
introducing it into his mouth, expressed a wish that he might never meet
death otherwise than in war and amid arms," and a like custom is said
"to have been kept up, prior to the union, in Annandale and other places
along the Scottish border" (460. 129, 131).
_Salt._
Among the Negritos of the Philippine Islands, when a child is born, one
of the other children immediately gives it to eat some salt on the point
of a knife (326. I. 258). The virtues of salt are recognized among many
peoples. In the Middle Ages, when mothers abandoned their infants, they
used to place beside them a little salt in token that they were
unbaptized (326. I. 284); in Scotland, where the new-born babe is
"bathed in salted water, and made to taste it three times, because the
water was strengthening and also obnoxious to a person with the evil
eye," the lady of the house first visited by the mother and child must,
with the recital of a charm, put some salt in the little one's mouth. In
Brabant, during the baptismal ceremony, the priest consecrates salt,
given him by the father, and then puts a grain into the child's mouth,
the rest being carefully kept by the father. The great importance of
salt in the ceremonies of the Zuni and related Indians of the Pueblos
has been pointed out by Mr. Gushing.
Salt appears also at modern European wedding-feasts and prenuptial
rites, as do also rice and meal, which are also among the first foods of
some primitive races. Among the Badagas of the Nilgiri Hills, when the
child is named (from twenty to thirty days after birth), the maternal
uncle places three small bits of rice in its mouth (326. I. 284).
_Folk-Medicine_.
Among the Tlingit Indians, of Alaska, the new-born infant "is not given
the breast until all the contents of its stomach (which are considered
the cause of disease) are removed by vomiting, which is promoted by
pressing the stomach" (403. 40), and among the Hare Indians, "the infant
is not allowed food until four days after birth, in order to accustom it
to fasting in the next world" (396. I. 121). The Songish Indians do not
give the child anything to eat on the first day (404. 20); the Kolosh
Indians, of Alaska, after ten to thirty months "accustom their children
to the taste of a sea-animal," and, among the Arctic Eskimo, Kane found
"children, who could not yet speak, devouring with horrible greediness,
great lumps of walrus fat and flesh." Klutschak tells us how, during a
famine, the Eskimo of Hudson's Bay melted and boiled for the children
the blood-soaked snow from the spot where a walrus had been killed and
cut up (326. II. 181).
In Culdaff, in the county of Donegal, Ireland, "an infant at its birth
is forced to swallow spirits, and is immediately afterwards [strange
anticipation of Dr. Robinson] suspended by the upper jaw on the nurse's
forefinger. Whiskey is here the representative of the Hindu soma, the
sacred juice of the ash, etc., and the administration of alcoholic
liquors to children of a tender age in sickness and disease so common
everywhere but a few years ago, founded itself perhaps more upon this
ancient belief than upon anything else" (401. 180).
The study of the food of sick children is an interesting one, and much
of value may be read of it in Zanetti (173), Black (401), and other
writers who have treated of folk-medicine. The decoctions of plants and
herbs, the preparations of insects, reptiles, the flesh, blood, and
ordure of all sorts of beasts (and of man), which the doctrines of
signatures and sympathies, the craze of _similia similibus_, forced
down the throat of the child, in the way of food and medicine, are
legion in number, and must be read in Folkard and the herbalists, in
Bourke (407), Strack, etc.
In some parts of the United States even snail-water and snail-soup are
not unknown; in New England, as Mrs. Earle informs us (221. 6), much was
once thought of "the admirable and most famous snail-water."
_Milk and Honey_.
As we have abundantly seen, the first food of the child is the "food of
the gods," for so were honey and milk esteemed among the ancient
Germans, Greeks, Slavs, Hindus, etc., and of the Paradise where dwelt
the Gods, and into which it was fabled children were born, we have some
recollection, as Ploss suggests, in the familiar "land flowing with milk
and honey," into the possession of which the children of Israel entered
after their long wandering in the wilderness (462. II. 696). Of the
ancient Hindu god Agni, Letourneau (100. 315) observes: "After being for
a long time fed upon melted butter and the alcoholic liquor from the
acid asclepias, the sacred Soma, he first became a glorious child, then
a metaphysical divinity, a mediator living in the fathers and living
again in the sons." It was the divine _Soma_ that, like the nectar
of the Greeks, the elixirs of the Scandinavians, conferred youth and
immortality upon those who drank it.
According to Moslem legend, after his birth, Abraham "remained concealed
in a cave during fifteen months, and his mother visited him sometimes to
nurse him. But he had no need of her food, for Allah commanded water to
flow from one of Abraham's fingers, milk from another, honey from the
third, the juice of dates from the fourth, and butter from the fifth"
(547. 69).
_Poison_.
In the _Gesta Romanorum_ (Cap. XI.) we read of the "Queen of the
North," who "nourished her daughter from the cradle upon a certain kind
of deadly poison; and when she grew up, she was considered so beautiful,
that the sight of her alone affected one with madness." Moreover, her
whole nature had become so imbued with poisons that "she herself had
become the deadliest poison in existence. Poison was her element of
life. With that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very air. Her
love would have been poison, her embrace death." Hawthorne's story of
"Rappaccini's Daughter,"--"who ever since infancy had grown and
blossomed with the plants whose fatal properties she had imbibed with
the air she breathed,"--comes from the same original source (390. II.
172). Here we are taken back again to the Golden Age, when even poisons
could be eaten without harm.
_Priest and Food_.
With the giving of the child's food the priest is often associated. In
the Fiji Islands, at Vitilevu, on the day when the navel-string falls
off, a festival is held, and the food of the child is blest by the
priest with prayers for his life and prosperity. In Upper Egypt, a feast
is held at the house of the father and the child consecrated by the cadi
or a priest, to whom is brought a plate with sugar-candy. The priest
chews the candy and lets the sweet juice fall out of his mouth into that
of the child, and thus "gives him his name out of his mouth" (326. I.
284).
The over-indulgence of children in food finds parallels at a later
period of life, when, as with the people of southern Nubia and the
Sahara between Talifet and Timbuktu, men fatten girls before marriage,
making them consume huge quantities of milk, butter, etc.
For children, among many primitive peoples, there are numerous
_taboos_ of certain classes and kinds of food, from religious or
superstitious motives. This _taboo_-system has not lost all its
force even to-day, as no other excuse can reasonably be offered for the
refusal of certain harmless food to the young.
_Tobacco_.
Concerning certain Australian tribes, Lumholtz remarks: "Before the
children are big enough to hold a pipe in their mouth they are permitted
to smoke, and the mother will share her pipe with the nursing babe"
(495. 193). In like manner, among the natives of the Solomon Islands,
Mr. Guppy witnessed displays of precocity in this regard:
"Bright-looking lads, eight or nine years of age, stood smoking their
pipes as gravely as Haununo [a chief] himself; and even the smallest
babe in its father's arms caught hold of his pipe and began to suck
instinctively" (466.42). With the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, according
to Simson, the child, when three or four years old, is initiated into
the mysteries of tobacco-smoking, amid great festivities and ceremonies
(533. 388).
_Drink of Immortality_.
Feeding the dead has been in practice among many primitive peoples. The
mother, with some of the Indian tribes of New Mexico, used to drop milk
from her breast on the lips of her dead babe; and in many parts of the
world we meet with the custom of placing food near the grave, so that
the spirits may not hunger, or of placing it in the grave or coffin, so
that on its way to the spirit-land the soul of the deceased may partake
of some refreshment. Among the ancient natives of Venezuela, "infants
who died a few days after their birth, were seated around the Tree of
Milk, or Celestial Tree, that distilled milk from the extremity of its
branches"; and kindred beliefs are found elsewhere (448. 297).
We have also the tree associated beautifully with the newborn child, as
Reclus records concerning the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills, in India:
"Immediately the deliverance has taken place--it always happens in the
open air--three leaves of the aforementioned tree [under which the
mother and father have passed the night] are presented to the father,
who, making cups of them, pours a few drops of water into the first,
wherewith he moistens his lips; the remainder he decants into the two
other leaves; the mother drinks her share, and causes the baby to
swallow his. Thus, father, mother, and child, earliest of Trinities,
celebrate their first communion, and drink the living water, more sacred
than wine, from the leaves of the Tree of Life" (523. 201).
The sacred books of the Hebrews tell us that the race of man in its
infancy became like the gods by eating of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, and in the legends of other peoples immortality came to the
great heroes by drinking of the divine sap of the sacred tree, or
partaking of some of its fruit. The ancient Egyptians believed that milk
from the breast of the divine mother Isis conferred divinity and
immortality upon him who drank of it or imbibed it from the sacred
source. Wiedemann aptly compares with this the Greek story of the
infancy of Hercules. The great child-hero was the son of the god Jupiter
and Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, King of Argos. He was exposed by his
mother, but the goddess Athene persuaded Hera to give him her breast
(another version says Hermes placed Hercules on the breast of Hera,
while she slept) and the infant Hercules drew so lustily of the milk
that he caused pain to the goddess, who snatched him away. But Hercules
had drunk of the milk of a goddess and had become immortal, and as one
of the gods (167. 266).
CHAPTER X.
CHILDREN'S SOULS.
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.--_Wordsworth_.
And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell
In ever-flowing meads of Asphodel.
--_Homer (Pope's Transl_.).
_Baptism_.
With certain Hindu castes, the new-born child is sprinkled with cold
water, "in order that the soul, which, since its last existence, has
remained in a condition of dreamy contemplation, may be brought to the
consciousness that it has to go through a new period of trial in this
corporeal world" (326. II. 13). Perhaps, among the myriad rites and
ceremonies of immersion and sprinkling to which the infant is submitted
with other primitive peoples, some traces of similar beliefs may be
found.
When the new world-religion was winning its way among the gentiles,
baptism was the great barrier erected between the babe and the power of
ill, spirits of air, earth, and water, survivals of old heathenism
antagonistic to Christianity. Before that holy rite was performed, the
child lay exposed to all their machinations. Baptism was the armour of
the infant against the assaults of Satan and his angels, against the
cunning of the wanderers from elfin-land, the fairy-sprites, with their
changelings and their impish tricks.
Hence, the souls of still-born and unbaptized children came into the
power of these evil ones and were metamorphosed into insects, birds,
beasts, and the like, whose peculiar notes and voices betray them as
having once been little children, or were compelled to join, the train
of the wild huntsman, or mingle in the retinue of some other outcast,
wandering sprite or devil; or, again, as some deceitful star, or
will-o'-the-wisp, mislead and torment the traveller on moor and in bog
and swamp, and guide him to an untimely death amid desert solitudes.
Ploss, Henderson, and Swainson have a good deal to say on the subject of
Frau Berctha and her train, the Wild Huntsman, the "Gabble Retchet,"
"Yeth Hounds," etc. Mr. Henderson tells us that, "in North Devon the
local name is 'yeth hounds,' _heath_ and _heathen_ being both
'yeth' in the North Devon dialect. Unbaptized infants are there buried
in a part of the churchyard set apart for the purpose called
'Chrycimers,' i.e. Christianless, hill, and the belief seems to be that
their spirits, having no admittance into Paradise, unite in a pack of
'Heathen' or 'yeth' hounds, and hunt the Evil One, to whom they ascribe
their unhappy condition" (469. 131, 132). The prejudice against
unbaptized children lingers yet elsewhere, as the following extract from
a newspaper published in the year 1882 seems to indicate (230. 272):--
"There is in the island of Mull a little burial-ground entirely devoted
to unbaptized children, who were thus severed in the grave from those
who had been interred in the hope of resurrection to life. Only one
adult lies with the little babes--an old Christian woman--whose last
dying request it was that she should be buried with the unbaptized
children." The Rev. Mr. Thorn has given the facts poetic form and made
immortal that mother-heart whose love made holy--if hallowed it needed
to be--the lonely burial-ground where rest the infant outcasts:--
"A spot that seems to bear a ban,
As if by curse defiled:
No mother lies there with her babe,
No father by his child."
Among primitive peoples we find a like prejudice against still-born
children and children who die very young. The natives of the Highlands
of Borneo think that still-born infants go to a special spirit-land
called _Tenyn lallu_, and "the spirits of these children are
believed to be very brave and to require no weapon other than a stick to
defend themselves against their enemies. The reason given for this idea
is, that the child has never felt pain in this world and is therefore
very daring in the other" (475. 199). In Annam the spirits of children
still-born and of those dying in infancy are held in great fear. These
spirits, called _Con Ranh_, or _Con Lon_ (from _lon_, "to
enter into life"), are ever seeking "to incorporate themselves in the
bodies of others, though, after so doing, they are incapable of life."
Moreover, "their names are not mentioned in the presence of women, for
it is feared they might take to these, and a newly-married woman is in
like manner afraid to take anything from a woman, or to wear any of the
clothing of one, who has had such a child. Special measures are
necessary to get rid of the _Con Ranh_" (397. 18-19). The Alfurus,
of the Moluccas, "bury children up to their waists and expose them to
all the tortures of thirst until they wrench from them the promise to
hurl themselves upon the enemies of the village. Then they take them
out, but only to kill them on the spot, imagining that the spirits of
the victims will respect their last promise" (388. 81). On the other
hand, Callaway informs us that the Zulu diviner may divine by the
_Amatongo_ (spirit) of infants, "supposed to be mild and
beneficent" (417. 176).
_Transmigration_.
Wordsworth, in that immortal poem, which belongs to the jewels of the
treasure-house of childhood, has sung of the birth of man:--
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy,"--
and the humbler bards of many an age, whose names have perished with
the races that produced them, have thought and sung of soul-incarnation,
metempsychosis, transmigration, and kindred concepts, in a thousand
different ways. In their strangely poetical language, the Tupi Indians,
of Brazil, term a child _pitanga_, "suck soul," from _piter_,
"to suck," _anga_, "soul." The Seminole Indians, of Florida, "held
the baby over the face of the woman dying in child-birth, so that it
might receive her parting spirit" (409. 271). A similar practice (with
the father) is reported from Polynesia. In a recently published work on
"Souls," by Mrs. Mary Ailing Aber, we read:--
"Two-thirds of all the babies that are born in civilized lands to-day
have no souls attached to them. These babies are emanations from their
parents,--not true entities; and, unless a soul attaches itself, no
ordinary efforts can carry one of them to the twentieth year. Souls do
attach themselves to babies after birth sometimes so late as the third
year. On the other hand, babies who have souls at birth sometimes lose
them because the soul finds a better place, or is drawn away by a
stronger influence; but this rarely occurs after the third year."
This somewhat _outre_ declaration of modern spiritualism finds
kindred in some of the beliefs of primitive peoples, concerning which
there is much in Ploss, Frazer, Bastian, etc.
In one of the Mussulman stories of King Solomon, the Angel of Death
descends in human form to take the soul of an aged man, whose wish was
to die when he had met the mightiest prophet. He dies talking to the
wise Hebrew king. Afterwards the Angel says to Solomon:--
"He [the angel, whose head reaches ten thousand years beyond the seventh
heaven, whose feet are five hundred years below the earth, and upon
whose shoulders stands the Angel of Death] it is who points out to me
when and how I must take a soul. His gaze is fixed on the tree Sidrat
Almuntaha, which bears as many leaves inscribed with names as there are
men living on the earth.
"At each new birth a new leaf, bearing the name of the newly-born,
bursts forth; and when any one has reached the end of his life, his leaf
withers and falls off, and at the same instant I am with him to receive
his soul....
"As often as a believer dies, Gabriel attends me, and wraps his soul in
a green silken sheet, and then breathes it into a green bird, which
feeds in Paradise until the day of the resurrection. But the soul of the
sinner I take alone, and, having wrapped it in a coarse, pitch-covered,
woollen cloth, carry it to the gates of Hell, where it wanders among
abominable vapours until the last day" (547. 213, 214).
According to the belief of the Miao-tse, an aboriginal tribe of the
province of Canton, in China, the souls of unborn children are kept in
the garden of two deities called "Flower-Grandfather" and
"Flower-Grandmother," and when to these have been made by a priest
sacrifices of hens or swine, the children are let out and thus appear
among men. As a charm against barrenness, these people put white paper
into a basket and have the priest make an invocation. The white paper
represents the deities, and the ceremony is called _kau fa; i.e._
"Flower Invocation."
In Japan, a certain Lake Fakone, owing its origin to an earthquake,
and now surrounded by many temples, is looked upon as the abode of the
souls of children about to be born (326. I. 3).
Certain Californian Indians, near Monterey, thought that "the dead
retreated to verdant islands in the West, while awaiting the birth of
the infants whose souls they were to form" (396. III. 525).
In Calabria, Italy, when a butterfly flits around a baby's cradle, it is
believed to be either an angel or a baby's soul, and a like belief
prevails in other parts of the world; and we have the classic
personification of Psyche, the soul, as a butterfly.
Among the uneducated peasantry of Ireland, the pure white butterfly is
thought to be the soul of the sinless and forgiven dead on the way to
Paradise, whilst the spotted ones are the embodiments of spirits
condemned to spend their time of purgatory upon earth, the number of the
sins corresponding with the number of spots on the wings of the insect
(418. 192).
In early Christian art and folk-lore, the soul is often figured as a
dove, and in some heathen mythologies of Europe as a mouse, weasel,
lizard, etc.
In various parts of the world we find that children, at death, go to
special limbos, purgatories, or heavens, and the folk-lore of the
subject must be read at length in the mythological treatises.
The Andaman Islanders "believe that every child which is conceived has
had a prior existence, but only as an infant. If a woman who has lost a
baby is again about to become a mother, the name borne by the deceased
is bestowed on the fetus, in the expectation that it will prove to be
the same child born again. Should it be found at birth that the babe is
of the same sex as the one who died, the identity is considered to be
sufficiently established; but, if otherwise, the deceased one is said to
be under the rau- (_Ficus laccifera_), in _cha-itan-_
(Hades)." Under this tree, upon the fruit of which they live, also dwell
"the spirits and souls of all children who die before they cease to be
entirely dependent on their parents (_i.e._ under six years of
age)" (498. 86, 93). There was a somewhat similar myth in Venezuela
(448. 297).
Mr. Codrington gives some interesting illustrations of this belief from
Melanesia (25. 311):--
"In the island of Aurora, Maewo, in the New Hebrides, women sometimes
have a notion that the origin, beginning, of one of their children is a
cocoanut or a bread-fruit, or something of that kind; and they believe,
therefore, that it would be injurious to the child to eat that food. It
is a fancy of the woman, before the birth of the child, that the infant
will be the _nunu_, which may be translated the echo, of such an
object. Women also fancy that a child is the _nunu_ of some dead
person. It is not a notion of metempsychosis, as if the soul of the dead
person returned in the new-born child; but it is thought that there is
so close a connection that the infant takes the place of the deceased.
At Mota, also, in the Banks Islands, there was the belief that each
person had a source of his being, his origin, in some animate or
inanimate thing, which might, under some circumstances, become known to
him." As Mr. Codrington suggests, such beliefs throw light upon the
probable origin of totemism and its development.
_Spirit-World_.
Mrs. Stevenson informs us that "although the Sia do not believe in a
return of the spirits of their dead when they have once entered Shipapo
[the lower world], there was once an exception to this." The priestly
tale, as told to Mrs. Stevenson, is as follows (538. 143):--
"When the years were new, and this village had been built perhaps three
years, all the spirits of our dead came here for a great feast. They had
bodies such as they had before death; wives recognized husbands,
husbands wives, children parents, and parents children. Just after
sundown the spirits began arriving, only a few passing over the road by
daylight, but after dark they came in great crowds and remained until
near dawn. They tarried but one night; husbands and wives did not sleep
together; had they done so, the living would have surely died. When the
hour of separation came, there was much weeping, not only among the
living, but the dead. The living insisted upon going with the dead, but
the dead declared they must wait,--that they could not pass through the
entrance to the other world; they must first die or grow old and again
become little children to be able to pass through the door of the world
for the departed. It was then that the Sia first learned all about their
future home. They learned that the fields were vast, the pastures
beautiful, the mountains high, the lakes and rivers clear like crystal,
and the wheat and cornfields flourishing. During the day the spirits
sleep, and at night they work industriously in the fields. The moon is
father to the dead as the sun is father to the living, the dead resting
when the sun travels, for at this time they see nothing; it is when the
sun returns to his home at night that the departed spirits work and pass
about in their world below. The home of the departed spirits is in the
world first inhabited by the Sia."
We learn further: "It is the aim of the Sia to first reach the
intermediate state at the time the body ceases to develop, and then
return gradually back to the first condition of infancy; at such periods
one does not die, but sleeps to awake in the spirit-world as a little
child. Many stories have come to the Sia by those who have died only for
a time; the heart becomes still and the lips cold, and the spirit passes
to the entrance of the other world and looks in, but does not enter, and
yet it sees all, and in a short time returns to inhabit its earthly
body. Great alarm is felt when one returns in this way to life, but much
faith is put in the stories afterwards told by the one who has passed
over the road of death."
In the belief of these Indians of North America we see some
foreshadowing of the declaration of Jesus, a rude expression of the
fundamental thought underlying his words:--
"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of
such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not
receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in nowise enter
therein."
Certain Siouan Indians think: "The stars are all deceased men. When a
child is born, a star descends and appears on earth in human form; after
death it reascends and appears as a star in heaven" (433. 508). How like
this is the poet's thought:--
"Our birth, is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar."
CHAPTER XI
CHILDREN'S FLOWERS, PLANTS, AND TREES.
As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he
flourishes.
--_Psalm_ ciii. 15.
A child at play in meadows green,
Plucking the fragrant flowers,
Chasing the white-winged butterflies,--
So sweet are childhood's hours.
We meet wi' blythesome and kythesome cheerie weans,
Daffin' and laughin' far adoon the leafy lanes,
Wi' gowans and buttercups buskin' the thorny wands--
Sweetly singin' wi' the flower-branch wavin' in their hands.
Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first
feeling would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise,
if some day when I am alone in a wood, one of the trees were to
speak to me.--_Sir John Lubbock_.
O who can tell
The hidden power of herbs, and might of magic spell?--_Spenser_.
_Plant Life and Human Life_.
Flowers, plants, and trees have ever been interwoven with the fate of
man in the minds of poets and folk-thinkers. The great Hebrew psalmist
declared: "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field
so he flourisheth," and the old Greeks said beautifully, [greek:
_oiaper phyllon genea, toiade kai andron_], "as is the generation
of leaves, so is also that of men"; or, to quote the words of Homer
(_Iliad_, vi. 146):--
"Like as the generation of leaves, so also is that of men;
For the wind strews the leaves on the ground; but the forest,
Putting forth fresh buds, grows on, and spring will presently return.
Thus with the generation of men; the one blooms, the other fades away."
One derivation (a folk-etymology, perhaps) suggested for the Greek
[Greek: _anthropos_] connects it with [Greek: _anthos_],
making _man_ to be "that which springs up like a flower." We
ourselves speak of the "flower of chivalry," the "bloom of youth,"
"budding youth"; the poets call a little child a "flower," a "bud," a
"blossom,"--Herrick even terms an infant "a virgin flosculet." Plants,
beasts, men, cities, civilizations, grow and _flourish_; the
selfsame words are applied to them all.
The same idea comes out strongly in the words relating to birth and
childhood in the languages of many primitive peoples. With the
Cakchiquel Indians of Guatemala the term _boz_ has the following
meanings: "to issue forth; (of flowers) to open, to blow; (of a
butterfly) to come forth from the cocoon; (of chicks) to come forth from
the egg; (of grains of maize) to burst; (of men) to be born"; in Nahuatl
(Aztec), _itzmolini_ signifies "to sprout, to grow, to be born"; in
Delaware, an Algonkian Indian dialect, _mehittuk_, "tree,"
_mehittgus_, "twig," _mehittachpin_, "to be born," seem
related, while _gischigin_ means "to ripen, to mature, to be born."
In many tongues the words for "young" reveal the same flow of thought.
In Maya, an Indian language of Yucatan, _yax_ signifies "green,
fresh, young"; in Nahuatl, _yancuic_, "green, fresh, new," and
_yancuic pilla_, "a new-born babe"; in Chippeway, _oshki,_
"new, fresh, young," whence _oshkigin_, "young shoot,"
_oshkinawe_, "lad, youth," _oshkinig_, "newly born,"
_oshkinaiaa_, "a new or young object," _oshkiaiaans_, "a young
animal or bird," oshkiabinodji_, "babe, infant, new-born child"; in
Karankawa, an Indian language of Texas, _kwa'-an_, "child, young,"
signifies literally "growing," from _ka'-awan_, "to grow" (said of
animals and plants).
Our English words _lad_ and _lass_, which came to the language
from Celtic sources, find their cognate in the Gothic
_jugga-lauths_, "young lad, young man," where _jugga_ means
"young," and _lauths_ is related to the verb _liudan_, "to
grow, to spring up," from which root we have also the German
_Leute_ and the obsolete English _leet_, for "people" were
originally "the grown, the sprung up."
_Maid (maiden)_, Anglo-Saxon _moegd_, Modern High German
_Magd_, Gothic _magaths_ (and here belongs also old English
_may_) is an old Teutonic word for "virgin, young girl." The Gothic
_magaths_ is a derivative from _magus_, "son, boy, servant,"
cognate with Old Irish _mac_, "boy, son, youth," _mog_ (mug),
"slave," Old Norse _mqgr_, "son," Anglo-Saxon _mago_, "son,
youth, servant, man," the radical of all these terms being _mag_,
"to have power, to increase, to grow,"--the Gothic _magus_ was
properly "a growing (boy)," a "maid" is "a growing (girl)." The same
idea underlies the month-name _May_, for, to the Romans, this was
"the month of growth,"--flowery, bounteous May,--and dedicated to
_Maia_, "the increaser," but curiously, as Ovid tells us, the
common people considered it unlucky to marry in May, for then the rites
of Bona Dea, the goddess of chastity, and the feasts of the dead, were
celebrated.
_Plant-Lore._
The study of dendanthropology and human florigeny would lead us wide
afield. The ancient Semitic peoples of Asia Minor had their "Tree of
Life," which later religions have spiritualized, and more than one race
has ascribed its origin to trees. The Carib Indians believed that
mankind--woman especially--were first created from two trees (509. 109).
According to a myth of the Siouan Indians, the first two human beings
stood rooted as trees in the ground for many ages, until a great snake
gnawed at the roots, so that they got loose and became the first
Indians. In the old Norse cosmogony, two human beings--man and
woman--were created from two trees--ash and elm--that stood on the
sea-shore; while Tacitus states that the holy grove of the Semnones was
held to be the cradle of the nation, and in Saxony, men are said to have
grown from trees. The Maya Indians called themselves "sons of the trees"
(509. 180, 264).
Doctor Beauchamp reports a legend of the Iroquois Indians, according to
which a god came to earth and sowed five handfuls of seed, and these,
changing to worms, were taken possession of by spirits, changed to
children, and became the ancestors of the Five Nations (480. IV. 297).
Classical mythology, along with dryads and tree-nymphs of all sorts,
furnishes us with a multitude of myths of the metamorphosis of human
beings into trees, plants, and flowers. Among the most familiar stories
are those of Adonis, Crocus, Phyllis, Narcissus, Leucothea, Hyacinthus,
Syrinx, Clytie, Daphne, Orchis, Lotis, Philemon and Baucis, Atys, etc.
All over the world we find myths of like import.
A typical example is the Algonkian Indian legend of the transformation
of Mishosha, the magician, into the sugar-maple,--the name
_aninatik_ or _ininatik_ is interpreted by folk-etymology as
"man-tree," the sap being the life-blood of Mishosha. Gluskap, the
culture-hero of the Micmacs, once changed "a mighty man" into the
cedar-tree.
Many of the peculiarities of trees and plants are explained by the folk
as resulting from their having once been human creatures.
Grimm and Ploss have called attention to the widespread custom of
planting trees on the occasion of the birth of a child, the idea being
that some sort of connection between the plant and the human existed and
would show itself sympathetically. In Switzerland, where the belief is
that the child thrives with the tree, or _vice versa_, apple-trees
are planted for boys and pear- or nut-trees for girls. Among the Jews, a
cedar was planted for a boy and a pine for a girl, while for the wedding
canopy, branches were cut from both these trees (385. 6). From this
thought the orators and psalmists of old Israel drew many a noble and
inspiring figure, such as that used by David: "The righteous shall
flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon."
Here belong also "flourishing like a green bay-tree," and the remark of
the Captain in Shakespeare's _King Richard Second:_--
"'Tis thought the king is dead. We will not stay;
The bay-trees in our country are all withered."
_Child-Flowers and -Plants._
The planting of trees for the hero or the heroine and the belief that
these wither when a death is near, blossom when a happy event
approaches, and in many ways react to the fate and fortune of their
human fellows, occur very frequently in fairy-tales and legends.
There is a sweet Tyrolian legend of "a poor idiot boy, who lived alone
in the forest and was never heard to say any words but 'Ave Maria.'
After his death a lily sprang up on his grave, on whose petals 'Ave
Maria' might be distinctly read." (416. 216).
An old Greek myth relates that the Crocus "sprang from the blood of the
infant Crocus, who was accidentally struck by a metal disc thrown by
Mercury, whilst playing a game" (448.299). In Ossianic story, "Malvina,
weeping beside the tomb of Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is
comforted by the maids of Morven, who narrate how they have seen the
innocent infant borne on a light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh
harvest of flowers, amongst which rises one with golden disc, encircled
with rays of silver, tipped with a delicate tint of crimson." Such,
according to this Celtic legend, was the origin of the daisy (448. 308).
The peasants of Brittany believe that little children, when they die, go
straight to Paradise and are changed into beautiful flowers in the
garden of heaven (174. 141). Similar beliefs are found in other parts of
the world, and a like imagery is met with among our poets. Well known is
Longfellow's little poem "The Reaper and the Flowers," in which death,
as a reaper, reaps not alone the "bearded grain," but also "the flowers
[children] that grow between," for:--
"'My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,'
The reaper said, and smiled;
'Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a child.'"
And so:--
"The mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the field of light above."
According to a myth of the Chippeway Indians, a star once came down from
heaven to dwell among men. Upon consulting with a young man in a dream
as to where it should live, it was told to choose a place for itself,
and, "at first, it dwelt in the white rose of the mountains; but there
it was so buried that it could not be seen. It went to the prairie; but
it feared the hoof of the buffalo. It next sought the rocky cliff; but
there it was so high that the children whom it loved most could not see
it." It decided at last to dwell where it could always be seen, and so
one morning the Indians awoke to find the surface of river, lake, and
pond covered with thousands of white flowers. Thus came into existence
the beautiful water-lilies (440. 68-70).
Perhaps the most beautiful belief regarding children's flowers is that
embodied in Hans Christian Andersen's tale _The Angel_, where the
Danish prose-poet tells us: "Whenever a child dies, an angel from heaven
comes down to earth and takes the dead child in his arms, spreads out
his great white wings, and flies away over all the places the child has
loved and picks quite a handful of flowers, which he carries up to the
Almighty, that they may bloom in heaven more brightly than on earth. And
the Father presses all the flowers to His heart; but He kisses the
flower that pleases Him best, and the flower is then endowed with a
voice and can join in the great chorus of praise" (393.341).
_Star-Flowers_.
Beside this, however, we may perhaps place the following quaint story of
"The Devils on the Meadows of Heaven," of which a translation from the
German of Rudolph Baumbach, by "C. F. P.," appears in the _Association
Record_ (October, 1892), published by the Young Women's Christian
Association of Worcester, Mass.:--
"As you know, good children, when they die, come to Heaven and become
angels. But if you perhaps think they do nothing the sweet, long day but
fly about and play hide-and-seek behind the clouds, you are mistaken.
The angel-children are obliged to go to school like the boys and girls
on the earth, and on week days must be in the angel-school three hours
in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. There they write with golden
pens on silver slates, and instead of ABC-books they have story-books
with gay-coloured pictures. They do not learn geography, for of what use
in Heaven is earth-knowledge; and in eternity one doesn't know the
multiplication table at all. Dr. Faust is the angel-school teacher. On
earth he was an A.M., and on account of a certain event which does not
belong here, he is obliged to keep school in Heaven three thousand years
more before the long vacation begins for him. Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons the little angels have holiday; then they are taken to walk
on the Milky Way by Dr. Faust. But Sunday they are allowed to play on
the great meadow in front of the gate of Heaven, and that they joyfully
anticipate during the whole week.
"The meadow is not green, but blue, and on it grow thousands and
thousands of silver and golden flowers. They shine in the night and we
men call them stars.
"When the angels are sporting about before the gate of Heaven, Dr. Faust
is not present, for on Sunday he must recover from the toil of the past
week. St. Peter, who keeps watch at the Heavenly gate, then takes
charge. He usually sees to it that the play goes on properly, and that
no one goes astray or flies away; but if one ever gets too far away from
the gate, then he whistles on his golden key, which means 'Back!'
"Once--it was really very hot in Heaven--St. Peter fell asleep. When the
angels noticed this, they ceased swarming hither and thither and
scattered over the whole meadow. But the most enterprising of them went
out on a trip of discovery, and came at last to the place where the
world is surrounded by a board fence. First they tried to find a crack
somewhere through which they might peep, but as they found no gap, they
climbed up the board fence and hung dangling and looking over. Yonder,
on the other side, was hell, and before its gate a crowd of little
devils were just running about. They were coal-black, and had horns on
their heads and long tails behind. One of them chanced to look up and
noticed the angels, and immediately begged imploringly that they would
let them into Heaven for a little while; they would behave quite nice
and properly. This moved the angels to pity, and because they liked the
little black fellows, they thought they might perhaps allow the poor
imps this innocent pleasure.
"One of them knew the whereabouts of Jacob's ladder. This they dragged
to the place from the lumber-room (St. Peter had, luckily, not waked
up), lifted it over the fence of boards, and let it down into hell.
Immediately the tailed fellows clambered up its rounds like monkeys, the
angels gave them their hands, and thus came the devils upon Heaven's
meadows.
"At first they behaved themselves in a quite orderly manner. Modestly
they stepped along and carried their tails on their arms like trains, as
the devil grandmother, who sets great value on propriety, had taught
them. But it did not last long; they became frolicsome, turned wheels
and somersaults, and shrieked at the same time like real imps. The
beautiful moon, who was looking kindly out of a window in Heaven, they
derided, thrust out their tongues and made faces (German: long noses) at
her, and finally began to pluck up the flowers which grew on the meadow
and throw them down on the earth. Now the angels grew frightened and
bitterly repented letting their evil guests into Heaven. They begged and
threatened, but the devils cared for nothing, and kept on in their
frolic more madly. Then, in terror, the angels waked up St. Peter and
penitently confessed to him what they had done. He smote his hands
together over his head when he saw the mischief which the imps had
wrought. 'March in!' thundered he, and the little ones, with drooping
wings, crept through the gate into Heaven. Then St. Peter called a few
sturdy angels. They collected the imps and took them where they
belonged.
"The little angels did not escape punishment. Three Sundays in
succession they were not allowed in front of Heaven's gate, and, if they
were taken to walk, they were obliged to first unbuckle their wings and
lay aside their halos; and it is a great disgrace for an angel to go
about without wings and halo.
"But the affair resulted in some good, after all. The flowers which the
devils had torn up and thrown upon the earth took root and increased
from year to year. To be sure, the star-flower lost much of its heavenly
beauty, but it is still always lovely to look at, with its golden-yellow
disk, and its silvery white crown of rays.
"And because of its Heavenly origin, a quite remarkable power resides in
it. If a maiden, whose mind harbours a doubt, pulls off, one by one, the
white petals of the flower-star, whispering meanwhile a certain sentence
at the fall of the last little petal, she is quite sure of what she
desires to know."
The very name _Aster_ is suggestive of star-origin and recalls the
lines of Longfellow:--
"Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine."
The reference seems to be to Friedrich Wilhelm Carove, of Coblentz, in
whose _Marchen ohne Ende_, a forget-me-not is spoken of as
"twinkling as brightly as a blue star on the green firmament of earth"
(390. II. 149).
Another contribution to floral astrology is the brief poem of H. M.
Sweeny in the _Catholic World_ for November, 1892:--
"The Milky Way is the foot-path
Of the martyrs gone to God;
Its stars are the flaming jewels
To show us the way they trod.
"The flowers are stars dropped lower,
Our daily path to light,
In daylight to lead us upward
As those jewels do at night."
Flower-oracles are discussed in another section, and the "language of
flowers" of which the poet tells,--
"In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bower
On its leaves a mystic language bears,"
must be studied in Dyer, Friend, and Folkard, or in the various booklets
which treat of this entertaining subject.
Though in Bohemia it is believed that "seven-year-old children will
become beautiful by dancing in the flax," and in some parts of Germany
"when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed naked upon
the turf on Midsummer Day, and flax-seed is sprinkled over it; the idea
being, that, as the flax-seed grows, so the child will gradually grow
stronger" (435. 278, 279); flowers and plants are sometimes associated
with ill-luck and death. In Westphalia and Thuringia the superstition
prevails that "any child less than a year old, who is permitted to
wreathe himself with flowers, will soon die." In the region about
Cockermouth, in the county of Cumberland, England, the red campion
(_Lychnis diurna_) is known as "mother-die," the belief being that,
if children gather it, some misfortune is sure to happen to the parents.
Dyer records also the following: "In West Cumberland, the herb-robert
(_Geranium robertianum_) is called 'death come quickly,' from a
like reason, while in parts of Yorkshire, the belief is that the mother
of a child who has gathered the germander speedwell (_Veronica
chamoedrys_) will die ere the year is out" (435. 276).
_Children's Plant-Names._
Mr. H. C. Mercer, discussing the question of the presence of Indian corn
in Italy and Europe in early times, remarks (_Amer. Naturalist_,
Vol. XXVIII., 1894, p. 974):--
"An etymology has been suggested for the name _Grano Turco_
[Turkish grain], in the antics of boys when bearded and moustached with
maize silk, they mimic the fierce looks of Turks in the high 'corn.' We
cannot think that the Italian lad does not smoke the mock tobacco that
must tempt him upon each ear. If he does, he apes a habit no less
American in its origin than the maize itself. So the American lad
playing with a 'shoe-string bow' or a 'corn-stalk fiddle' would turn to
Italy for his inspiration."
In the interesting lists of popular American plant-names, published by
Mrs. Fanny D. Bergen (400), are found the following in which the child
is remembered:--
Babies' breath, _Galium Mollugo._ In Eastern Massachusetts.
Babies' breath, _Muscari botryoides._ In Eastern Massachusetts.
Babies' feet, _Polygala paucifolia._ In New Hampshire.
Babies' slippers, _Polygala paucifolia._ In Western Massachusetts.
Babies' toes, _Polygala paucifolia._ In Hubbardston, Mass.
Baby blue-eyes, _Nemophila insignis._ In Sta. Barbara, Cal.
Blue-eyed babies, _Houstonia coerulea._ In Springfield, Mass.
Boys and girls, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In New York.
Boys' love, _Artemisia absinthium._ In Wellfleet, Mass.
Death-baby, _Phallus sp. (?)._ In Salem, Mass.
Girls and boys, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In Vermont.
Little boy's breeches, _Dicentra cucullaria._ In Central Iowa.
"Blue-eyed babies" is certainly an improvement upon "Quaker ladies," the
name by which the _Houstonia_ is known in some parts of New
England; "death-baby" is a term that is given, Mrs. Bergen tells us,
"from the fancy that they foretell death in the family near whose house
they spring up. I have known of intelligent people rushing out in terror
and beating down a colony of these as soon as they appeared in the
yard."
The parents have not been entirely forgotten, as the following names
show:--
Mother's beauties, _Calandrina Menziesii_. In Sta. Barbara, Cal.
Mother of thousands, _Tradescantia crassifolia_ (?). In Boston, Mass.
Daddy-nuts, _Tilia sp._ (?). In Madison, Wis.
At La Crosse, Wis., the _Lonicera talarica_, is called "twin
sisters," a name which finds many analogues.
As we have seen, the consideration of children as flowers, plants,
trees, traverses many walks of life. Floral imagery has appealed to many
primitive peoples, perhaps to none more than to the ancient Mexicans,
with whom children were often called flowers, and the Nagualists termed
Mother-Earth "the flower that contains everything," and "the flower that
eats everything"--being at once the source and end of life (413. 54).
A sweet old German legend has it that the laughter of little children
produced roses, and the sweetest and briefest of the "good-night songs"
of the German mothers is this:--
"Guten Abend, gute Nacht!
Mit Rosen bedacht,
Mit Naglein besteckt;
Morgen fruh, wenn's Gott will,
Wirst du wieder geweckt."
CHAPTER XII.
CHILDREN'S ANIMALS, BIRDS, ETC.
My brother, the hare, ... my sisters, the doves.
--_St. Francis of Assisi._
Love of animals is inborn. The child that has had no pets is to
be pitied.--_G. Stanley Hall._
For what are the voices of birds--
Aye, and of beasts,--but words, our words,
Only so much more sweet?--_Browning._
I know not, little Ella, what the flowers
Said to you then, to make your cheek so pale;
And why the blackbird in our laurel bowers
Spoke to you, only: and the poor pink snail
Fear'd less your steps than those of the May-shower
It was not strange those creatures loved you so,
And told you all. 'Twas not so long ago
You were yourself a bird, or else a flower.
--_Lord Lytton (Owen Meredith)._
_Children and Young Animals._
The comparisons sometimes made of children with various of the lower
animals, such as monkeys, bears, pigs, etc., come more naturally to some
primitive peoples, who, as Ploss has pointed out, suckle at the breast
the young of certain animals simultaneously with their own offspring. In
this way, the infant in the Society Islands comes early into association
with puppies, as he does also among several of the native tribes of
Australia and America; so was it likewise in ancient Rome, and the
custom may yet be found among the tent-gypsies of Transylvania, in
Persia, and even within the present century has been met with in Naples
and Gottingen. The Maori mother, in like manner, suckles young pigs, the
Arawak Indian of Guiana young monkeys (as also do the Siamese), the
natives of Kamtschatka young bears. An old legend of the city of Breslau
has it that the fashion certain ladies have of carrying dogs around with
them originated in the fact that Duke Boleslau, in the last quarter of
the eleventh century, punished the women of Breslau, for some connubial
unfaithfulness, by taking away their suckling children and making them,
carry instead puppies at the breast (392. I. 61).
Of the Arekuna of Guiana, Schomburgk tells us:--"They bring up children
and monkeys together. The monkeys are members of the family, eat with
the other members, are suckled by the women, and have great affection
for their human nurses. Oftentimes a woman is to be seen with a child
and a monkey at the breast, the two nurselings quarrelling" (529. 13).
The young children of the less nomadic tribes grow up in close
association with the few domestic animals possessed by their parents,
tumbling about with the puppies on the wigwam-floor or racing with them
around the camp-stead.
The history of totemism and fetichism, primitive medicine, and the arts
connected therewith, their panaceas, talismans, and amulets, show early
association of the child with animals. In the village of Issapoo, on the
island of Fernando Po, in Western Africa, there is fastened to a pole in
the market-place a snake-skin, to touch which all infants born the
preceding year are brought by their mothers during an annual festival
(529. 32). In various parts of the world, novices and neophytes are put
to dream or fast in seclusion until they see some animal which becomes
their tutelary genius, and whose form is often tattooed upon their body.
Sir John Maundeville, the veracious mediaeval chronicler, reported that
in Sicily serpents were used to test the legitimacy of children; "if the
children be illegitimate, the serpents bite and kill them." Hartland
cites, on the authority of Thiele, "a story in which a wild stallion
colt is brought in to smell two babes, one of which is a changeling.
Every time he smells one he is quiet and licks it; but, on smelling the
other, he is invariably restive and strives to kick it. The latter,
therefore, is the changeling" (258. 111).
_Animal Nurses._
Akin to these practices are many of the forms of exposure and
abandonment all over the world. Shakespeare, in _The Winter's
Tale_, makes Antigonus say:--
"Come on (poor Babe).
Some powerful Spirit instruct the Kites and Ravens
To be thy Nurses. Wolves and Bears, they say
(Casting their savageness aside), have done
Like offices of pity."
An old Egyptian painting represents a child and a calf being suckled by
the same cow, and in Palestine and the Canary Islands, goats are used to
suckle children, especially if the mother of the little one has died
(125. II. 393). The story of Psammetichus and the legend of Romulus and
Remus find parallels in many lands. Gods, heroes, saints, are suckled
and cared for in their infancy by grateful beasts.
_Wild Children._
Doctor Tylor has discussed at some length the subject of "wild men and
beast children" (376), citing examples from many different parts of the
globe. Procopius, the chronicler of the Gothic invasion of Italy, states
(with the additional information that he saw the child in question
himself), that, after the barbarians had ravaged the country, "an
infant, left by its mother, was found by a she-goat, which suckled and
took care of it. When the survivors came back to their deserted homes,
they found the child living with its adopted mother, and called it
Aegisthus." Doctor Tylor calls attention to the prevalence of similar
stories in Germany after the destruction and devastation of the
Napoleonic wars; there appears to be record of several children wild or
animal-reared having, during this period, been received into Count von
Recke's asylum at Overdyke. Many of these tales we need not hesitate to
dismiss as purely fabulous, though there may be truth in some of the
rest. Among the best-known cases (some of which are evidently nothing
more than idiots, or poor wandering children) are: Peter, the "Wild Boy"
of Hameln (in 1724); the child reported in the Hessian Chronicle as
having been found by some hunters living with wolves in 1341; the child
reported by Bernard Connor as living with she-bears, and the child found
with bears at Grodno in Poland; the wolf-child of the Ardennes,
mentioned by Koenig, in his treatise on the subject; the Irish boy said
to feed on grass and hay, found living among the wild sheep; the girl
found living wild in Holland in 1717; the two goat-like boys of the
Pyrenees (in 1719); the amphibious wild girl of Chalons sur Marne (in
1731); the wild boy of Bamberg, who lowed like an ox; and, the most
renowned of all, Kaspar Hauser. This celebrated "wild boy" has recently
been made the subject of a monograph by the Duchess of Cleveland (208),
of which the first words are these: "The story of Kaspar Hauser is both
curious and instructive. It shows on how commonplace and unpromising a
foundation a myth of European celebrity may rest." Sir William Sleeman
has something to say of "beast-children" in the Kingdom of Oude (183),
and Mr. Ball, who writes of wolf-reared children in India, calls
attention to the fact that in that country there seems to have been no
instance of a wolf-reared girl (183. 474).
In the _Katha sarit sagara_ ("Ocean of the River of Story"), a work
belonging to the twelfth century, there is the story of the immoral
union of a _yaksha_, or _jin_, and the daughter of a holy man,
who was bathing in the Granges. The relatives of the girl by magic
changed the two guilty persons into a lion and a lioness. The latter
soon died, but gave birth to a human child, which the lion-father made
the other lionesses suckle. The baby grew up and became "the
world-ruling king, Satavahana" (376. 29). Another Hindu story tells how
the daughter of a Brahman, giving birth to a child while on a journey,
was forced to leave it in a wood, where it was suckled and nursed by
female jackals until rescued by merchants who happened to pass by.
Herodotus repeats the tales that Cyrus was nursed and suckled by a
bitch; Zeus figures as suckled by a goat; Romulus and Remus, the
founders of Rome according to the ancient legend, were nursed by a
she-wolf; and others of the heroes and gods of old were suckled by
animals whose primitive kinship with the race of man the folk had not
forgotten.
Professor Rauber of Dorpat, in his essay on "Homo Sapiens Ferus" (335),
discusses in detail sixteen cases of wild children (including most of
those treated by Tylor) as follows: the two Hessian wolf-children, boys
(1341-1344); the Bamberg boy, who grew up among the cattle (at the close
of the sixteenth century); Hans of Liege; the Irish boy brought up by
sheep; the three Lithuanian bear-boys (1657, 1669, 1694); the girl of
Oranienburg (1717); the two Pyrenaan boys (1719); Peter, the wild boy of
Hameln (1724); the girl of Songi in Champagne (1731); the Hungarian
bear-girl (1767); the wild man of Cronstadt (end of eighteenth century);
the boy of Aveyron (1795). It will be noticed that in this list of
sixteen cases but two girls figure.
As a result of his studies Professor Rauber concludes: "What we are wont
to call reason does not belong to man as such; in himself he is without
it. The appellation _Homo sapiens_ does not then refer to man as
such, but to the ability under certain conditions of becoming possessed
of reason. It is the same with language and culture of every sort. The
title _Homo sapiens ferus_ (Linnaus) is in a strict sense
unjustifiable and a contradiction in itself." To prehistoric man these
wild children are like, but they are not the same as he; they resemble
him, but cannot be looked upon as one and the same with him. From the
stand-point of pedagogy, Professor Rauber, from the consideration of
these children, feels compelled to declare that "the ABC-school must be
replaced by the culture-school." In other words: "The ABC is not, as so
many believe, the beginning of all wisdom. In order to be able to
admeasure this sufficiently, prehistoric studies are advisable, nay,
necessary. Writing is a very late acquisition of man. In the arrangement
of a curriculum for the first years of the culture-school, reading and
writing are to be placed at the end of the second school year, but never
are they to begin the course ... Manual training ought also to be taken
up in the schools; it is demanded by considerations of culture-history"
(335.133).
_Animal Stories._
Professor W. H. Brewer of New Haven, discussing the "instinctive
interest of children in bear and wolf stories," observes (192): "The
children of European races take more interest in bear and wolf stories
than in stories relating to any other wild animals. Their interest in
bears is greater than that in wolves, and in the plays of children bears
have a much more conspicuous part. There is a sort of fascination in
everything relating to these animals that attracts the child's attention
from a very early age, and 'Tell me a bear story' is a common request
long before it learns to read." After rejecting, as unsatisfactory, the
theory that would make it a matter of education with each child,--"the
conservative traditions of children have preserved more stories about
bears and wolves, parents and nurses talk more about them, these animals
have a larger place in the literature for children; hence the special
interest,"--Professor Brewer expresses his own belief that "the special
interest our children show towards these two animals is instinctive, and
it is of the nature of an inherited memory, vague, to be sure, yet
strong enough to give a bend to the natural inclinations." He points out
that the bear and the wolf are the two animals "which have been and
still are the most destructive to human life (and particularly to
children) in our latitude and climate," and that "several of the large
breeds of dogs,--the wolf-hound proper, the mastiff (particularly the
Spanish mastiff), and even the St. Bernard,--were originally evolved as
wolf-dogs for the protection of sheep and children." His general
conclusion is: "The fear inspired by these animals during the long ages
of the childhood of our civilization, and the education of the many
successive generations of our ancestors in this fear, descends to us as
an inherited memory, or, in other words, an instinct. While not strong,
it is of sufficient force to create that kind of fascination which
stories of bears and wolves have in children before the instincts are
covered up and obscured by intellectual education. The great shaggy bear
appeals more strongly to the imagination of children, hence its superior
value to play 'boo' with."
_Rabbit and Hare._
The rabbit and the hare figure in many mythologies, and around them,
both in the Old World and the New, has grown up a vast amount of
folk-lore. The rabbit and the child are associated in the old
nursery-rhyme:--
"Bye, bye, Baby Bunting,
Papa's gone a-hunting,
To get a rabbit-skin,
To wrap Baby Bunting in,"
which reminds us at once of the Chinook Indians and the Flat Heads of
the Columbia, with whom "the child is wrapped in rabbit-skins and placed
in this little coffin-like cradle, from which it is not in some
instances taken out for several weeks" (306.174).
An Irish belief explains hare-lip as having been caused, before the
birth of the child, by the mother seeing a hare. The Chinese think that
"a hare or a rabbit sits at the foot of the cassia-tree in the moon,
pounding the drugs out of which the elixir of immortality is compounded"
(401. 155).
The Ungava Eskimo, according to Turner, have a legend that the hare was
once a little child, abused by its elders; "it ran away to dwell by
itself. The hare has no tail, because as a child he had none; and he
lays back his ears, when he hears a shout, because he thinks people are
talking about him" (544. 263).
In a myth of the Menomoni Indians, reported by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, we
read that Manabush [the great culture-hero] and a twin brother were born
the sons of the virgin daughter of an old woman named Nokomis. His
brother and mother died. Nokomis wrapped Manabush in dry, soft grass,
and placed a wooden bowl over him. After four days a noise proceeded
from the bowl, and, upon removing it, she saw "a little white rabbit
with quivering ears." Afterwards, when grown up, and mourning for the
death of his brother, Manabush is said to have hid himself in a large
rock near Mackinaw, where he was visited by the people for many years.
When he did not wish to see them in his human form, he appeared to them
as "a little white rabbit with trembling ears" (389. (1890) 246). Of the
white rabbit, the Great Hare, Manabush, Naniboju, etc., more must be
read in the mythological essays of Dr. Brinton.
Among the tales of the Ainu of Yezo, Japan, recorded by Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, is the following concerning the Hare-god:--
"Suddenly there was a large house on top of a hill, wherein were six
persons beautifully arrayed, but constantly quarrelling. Whence they
came was not known. Thereupon [the god] Okikurumi came, and said: 'Oh,
you bad hares! you wicked hares! Who should not know your origin? The
children in the sky were pelting each other with snowballs, and the
snowballs fell into this world of men. As it would have been a pity to
waste heaven's snow, the snowballs were turned into hares, and those
hares are you. You who live in this world of mine, this world of human
beings, must be quiet. What is it that you are brawling about?' With
these words, Okikurumi seized a fire-brand, and beat each of the six
with it in turn. Thereupon all the hares ran away. This is the origin of
the hare-god, and for this reason the body of the hare is white, because
made of snow, while its ears, which are the part which was charred by
the fire, are black" (471. 486).
The Mayas of Yucatan have a legend of a town of hares under the earth
(411. 179).
In Germany we meet with the "Easter-Hare" (Oster-Hase). In many parts of
that country the custom prevails at or about Easter-tide of hiding in
the garden, or in the house, eggs, which, the children are told, have
been laid by the "Easter-hare." Another curious term met with in
northeastern Germany is "hare-bread" (Hasenbrod). In Quedlinburg this
name is given to bread (previously placed there intentionally by the
parents) picked up by children when out walking with their parents or
elders. In Luneburg it is applied to dry bread given a hungry child with
an exhortation to patience. In the first case, the little one is told
that the hare has lost it, and in the second, that it has been taken
away from him. The name "hare-bread" is also given to bread brought home
by the parents or elders, when returning from a journey, the children
being told that it has been taken away from the hare.
In the shadow-pictures made on the wall for the amusement of children
the rabbit again appears, and the hare figures also in children's games.
_Squirrel._
According to the belief of certain Indians of Vancouver Island, there
once lived "a monstrous old woman with wolfish teeth, and finger-nails
like claws." She used to entice away little children whom she afterwards
ate up. One day a mother, who was about to lose her child thus, cried
out to the spirits to save her child in any way or form. Her prayer was
answered, and "The Great Good Father, looking down upon the Red Mother,
pities her; lo! the child's soft brown skin turns to fur, and there
slides from the ogress's grip, no child, but the happiest, liveliest,
merriest little squirrel of all the West,--but bearing, as its
descendants still bear, those four dark lines along the back that show
where the cruel claws ploughed into it escaping" (396. III. 52-54).
Elsewhere, also, the squirrel is associated with childhood. Familiar is
the passage in Longfellow's _Hiawatha,_ where the hero speaks to
the squirrel, who has helped him out of a great difficulty:--
"Take the thanks of Hiawatha,
And the name which now he gives you;
For hereafter, and forever,
Boys shall call you _adjidaumo,
Tail in air_ the boys shall call you."
_Seals._
Those noble and indefatigable missionaries, the Moravians, have more
than once been harshly criticised in certain quarters, because, in their
versions of the Bible, in the Eskimo language, they saw fit to
substitute for some of the figurative expressions employed in our
rendering, others more intelligible to the aborigines. In the New
Testament Christ is termed the "Lamb of God," but since, in the Arctic
home of the Innuit, shepherds and sheep are alike unknown, the
translators, by a most felicitous turn of language, rendered the phrase
by "little seal of God," a figure that appealed at once to every Eskimo,
young and old, men and women; for what sheep were to the dwellers on the
Palestinian hillsides, seals are to this northernmost of human races.
Rink tells us that the Eskimo mother "reserves the finest furs for her
new-born infant," while the father keeps for it "the daintiest morsels
from the chase," and, "to make its eyes beautiful, limpid, and bright, he
gives it seal's eyes to eat" (523. 37).
_Fish._
Mrs. Bramhall tells us how in Japan the little children, playing about
the temples, feed the pet fishes of the priests in the temple-lake. At
the temple of the Mikado, at Kioto, she saw "six or eight little boys
and girls ... lying at full length on the bank of the pretty lake." The
fishes were called up by whistling, and the children fed them by holding
over the water their open hands full of crumbs (189. 65). Other
inhabitants of the sea and the waters of the earth are brought into
early relation with children.
_Crabs and Crawfishes._
Among the Yeddavanad, of the Congo, a mother tells her children
concerning three kinds of crabs: "Eat _kallali,_ and you will
become a clever man; eat _hullali,_ and you will become as brave as
a tiger; eat _mandalli,_ and you will become master of the house"
(449. 297).
In the Chippeway tale of the "Raccoon and the Crawfish," after the
former, by pretending to be dead, has first attracted to him and then
eaten all the crawfish, we are told:--
"While he was engaged with the broken limbs, a little female crawfish,
carrying her infant sister on her back, came up seeking her relations.
Finding they had all been devoured by the raccoon, she resolved not to
survive the destruction of her kindred, but went boldly up to the enemy,
and said: 'Here, Aissibun (Raccoon), you behold me and my little sister.
We are all alone. You have eaten up our parents and all our friends. Eat
us, too!' And she continued to say: 'Eat us, too! _Aissibun amoon,
Aissibun amoon!'_ The raccoon was ashamed. 'No!' said he,' I have
banqueted on the largest and fattest; I will not dishonour myself with
such little prey.' At this moment, Manabozbo [the culture-hero or
demi-god of these Indians] happened to pass by. _'Tyau,'_ said he
to the raccoon, 'thou art a thief and an unmerciful dog. Get thee up
into trees, lest I change thee into one of these same worm-fish; for
thou wast thyself a shell-fish originally, and I transformed thee.'
Manabozho then took up the little supplicant crawfish and her infant
sister, and cast them into the stream. 'There,' said he, 'you may dwell.
Hide yourselves under the stones; and hereafter you shall be playthings
for little children'" (440. 411, 412).
_Games._
The imitation of animals, their movements, habits, and peculiarities in
games and dances, also makes the child acquainted at an early age with
these creatures.
In the section on "Bird and Beast," appropriately headed by the words of
the good St. Francis of Assisi--"My brother, the hare, ... my sisters,
the doves,"--Mr. Newell notices some of the children's games in which
the actions, cries, etc., of animals are imitated. Such are "My
Household," "Frog-Pond," "Bloody Tom," "Blue-birds and Yellow-birds,"
"Ducks fly" (313. 115).
_Doves._
Not at Dodona and in Arcadia alone has the dove been associated with
religion, its oracles, its mysteries, and its symbolism. In the
childhood of the world, according to the great Hebrew cosmologist, "the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," and a later bard and
seer of our own race reanimated the ancient figure of his predecessor in
all its pristine strength, when in, the story of Paradise lost and found
again, he told how, at the beginning, the creative spirit
"Dove-like sat brooding o'er the vast abyss."
In the childhood of the race, it was a dove that bore to the few
survivors of the great flood the branch of olive, token that the anger
of Jahveh was abated, and that the waters no longer covered the whole
earth. In the childhood of Christianity, when its founder was baptized
of John in the river Jordan, "Lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and
the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and lighted on Him,"--and the
"Heavenly Dove" Still beautifies the imagery of oratory and song, the
art and symbolism of the great churches, its inheritors. In the
childhood of man the individual, the dove has also found warm welcome.
At the moment of the birth of St. Austrebertha (630-704 A.D.), as the
quaint legend tells, "the chamber was filled with a heavenly odour, and
a white dove, which hovered awhile above the house, flew into the
chamber and settled on the head of the infant," and when Catherine of
Racconigi (1486-1547 A.D.) was only five years old "a dove, white as
snow, flew into her chamber and lighted on her shoulder"; strange to
relate, however, the infant first took the bird for a tool of Satan, not
a messenger of God. When St. Briocus of Cardigan, a Welsh saint of the
sixth century, "was receiving the communion for the first time, a dove,
white as snow, settled on his head, and the abbot knew that the young
boy was a chosen vessel of honour" (191. 107, 108).
In a Swedish mother's hymn occurs the following beautiful thought:--
"There sitteth a dove so white and fair,
All on the lily spray,
And she listeneth how to Jesus Christ
The little children pray.
"Lightly she spreads her friendly wings,
And to Heaven's gate hath sped,
And unto the Father in Heaven she bears
The prayers which the children have said.
"And back she comes from Heaven's gate,
And brings, that dove so mild,
From the Father in Heaven, who hears her speak,
A blessing on every child.
"Then, children, lift up a pious prayer!
It hears whatever you say;
That heavenly dove so white and fair,
All on the lily spray" (379. 255).
The bird-messenger of childhood finds its analogue in the beliefs of
some primitive tribes that certain birds have access to the spirit-land,
and are the bearers of tidings from the departed. Into the same category
fall the ancient practice of releasing a dove (or some other winged
creature) at the moment of death of a human being, as a means of
transport of his soul to the Elysian fields, and the belief that the
soul itself took its flight in the form and semblance of a dove (509.
257).
The Haida Indians, of British Columbia, think that, "in the land of
light, children often transform themselves into bears, seals, and
birds," and wonderful tales are told of their adventures.
Hartley Coleridge found for the guardian angel of infancy, no apter
figure than that of the dove:--
"Sweet infant, whom thy brooding parents love
For what thou art, and what they hope to see thee,
Unhallow'd sprites, and earth-born phantoms flee thee;
Thy soft simplicity, a hovering dove,
That still keeps watch from blight and bane to free thee,
With its weak wings, in peaceful care outspread,
Fanning invisibly thy pillow'd head,
Strikes evil powers with reverential dread,
Beyond the sulphurous bolts of fabled Jove,
Or whatsoe'er of amulet or charm
Fond ignorance devised to save poor souls from harm."
Perhaps the sweetest touch of childhood in all Latin literature is that
charming passage in Horace (_Carm._ Lib. III. 4):--
"Me fabulosa Vulture in Apulo,
Nutrices extra limen Apulia,
Ludo fatigatoque somno
Fronde nova puerum palumbes
Texere,"
which Milman thus translates:--
"The vagrant infant on Mount Vultur's side,
Beyond my childhood's nurse, Apulia's bounds,
By play fatigued and sleep,
Did the poetic doves
With young leaves cover."
The amativeness of the dove has lent much to the figurative language of
that second golden age, that other Eden where love is over all.
Shenstone, in his beautiful pastoral, says:--
"I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed,"
and the "love of the turtle," "billing and cooing," are now transferred
to human affection. Venus, the goddess of love, and the boy-god Cupid
ride in a chariot drawn by doves, which birds were sacred to the
sea-born child of Uranus. In the springtime, when "the voice of the
turtle is heard in the land," then "a young man's fancy lightly turns to
thoughts of love." If, from the sacred oaks of Dodona, to the first
Greeks, the doves disclosed the oracles of Jove, so has "the moan of
doves in immemorial elms" divulged to generation after generation of
lovers the mission of his son of the bow and quiver.
_Robin._
What the wood-pigeon was to Horace, the robin-redbreast has been to the
children of old England. In the celebrated ballad of the "Children in
the Wood", we are told that, after their murder by the cruel uncle,--
"No burial these pretty babes
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves."
The poet Thomson speaks of "the redbreast sacred to the household gods,"
and Gray, in a stanza which, since the edition of 1753, has been omitted
from the _Elegy_, wrote:--
"There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen are frequent violets found;
The robin loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
Dr. Robert Fletcher (447) has shown to what extent the redbreast figures
in early English poetry, and the belief in his pious care for the dead
and for children is found in Germany, Brittany, and other parts of the
continent of Europe. In England the robin is the children's favourite
bird, and rhymes and stories in his honour abound,--most famous is the
nursery song, "Who killed Cock Robin?"
A sweet legend of the Greek Church tells us that "Our Lord used to feed
the robins round his mother's door, when a boy; moreover, that the robin
never left the sepulchre till the Resurrection, and, at the Ascension,
joined in the angels' song." The popular imagination, before which the
robin appears as "the pious bird with the scarlet breast," found no
difficulty in assigning a cause for the colour of its plumage. One
legend, current amongst Catholic peoples, has it that "the robin was
commissioned by the Deity to carry a drop of water to the souls of
unbaptized infants in hell, and its breast was singed in piercing the
flames." In his poem _The Robin_, Whittier has versified the story
from a Welsh source. An old Welsh lady thus reproves her grandson, who
had tossed a stone at the robin hopping about in the apple-tree:--
"'Nay!' said the grandmother; 'have you not heard,
My poor, bad boy! of the fiery pit,
And how, drop by drop, this merciful bird
Carries the water that quenches it?
"'He brings cool dew in his little bill,
And lets it fall on the souls of sin;
You can see the mark on his red breast still
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.'"
Another popular story, however, relates that when Christ was on His way
to Calvary, toiling beneath the burden of the cross, the robin, in its
kindness, plucked a thorn from the crown that oppressed His brow, and
the blood of the divine martyr dyed the breast of the bird, which ever
since has borne the insignia of its charity. A variant of the same
legend makes the thorn wound the bird itself and its own blood dye its
breast.
According to a curious legend of the Chippeway Indians, a stern father
once made his young son undergo the fasting necessary to obtain a
powerful guardian spirit. After bravely holding out for nine days, he
appealed to his father to allow him to give up, but the latter would not
hear of it, and by the eleventh day the boy lay as one dead. At dawn the
next morning, the father came with the promised food. Looking through a
hole in the lodge, he saw that his son had painted his breast and
shoulders as far as he could reach with his hands. When he went into the
lodge, he saw him change into a beautiful bird and fly away. Such was
the origin of the first robin-redbreast (440. 210). Whittier, in his
poem, _How the Robin Came_, has turned the tale of the Red Men into
song. As the father gazed about him, he saw that on the lodge-top--
"Sat a bird, unknown before,
And, as if with human tongue,
'Mourn me not,' it said, or sung;
'I, a bird, am still your son,
Happier than if hunter fleet,
Or a brave before your feet
Laying scalps in battle won.
Friend of man, my song shall cheer
Lodge and corn-land; hovering near,
To each wigwam I shall bring
Tidings of the coming spring;
Every child my voice shall know
In the moon of melting snow
When the maple's red bud swells,
And the wind-flower lifts its bells.
As their fond companion
Men shall henceforth own your son,
And my song shall testify
That of human kin am I.'"
_Stork._
The _Lieblingsvogel_ of German children is the stork, who, as
parents say, brings them their little brothers and sisters, and who is
remembered in countless folk and children's rhymes. The mass of
child-literature in which the stork figures is enormous. Ploss has a
good deal to say of this famous bird, and Carstens has made it the
subject of a brief special study,--"The Stork as a Sacred Bird in
Folk-Speech and Child-Song" (198). The latter says: "It is with a sort
of awe (_Ehrfurcht_) that the child looks upon this sacred bird,
when, returning with the spring he settles down on the roof, throwing
back his beak and greeting the new home with a flap of his wings; or
when, standing now on one foot, now on the other, he looks so solemnly
at things, that one would think he was devoutly meditating over
something or other; or, again, when, on his long stilt-like legs, he
gravely strides over the meadows. With great attention we listened as
children to the strange tales and songs which related to this sacred
bird, as our mother told them to us and then added with solemn mien,
'where he keeps himself during the winter is not really known,' or, 'he
flies away over the _Lebermeer_, whither no human being can
follow.' 'Storks are enchanted (_verwunscht_) men,' my mother used
to say, and in corroboration told the following story: 'Once upon a time
a stork broke a leg. The owner of the house upon which the stork had its
nest, interested himself in the unfortunate creature, took care of it
and attended to it, and soon the broken leg was well again. Some years
later, it happened that the kind-hearted man, who was a mariner, was
riding at anchor near the North Sea Coast, and the anchor stuck fast to
the bottom, so that nothing remained but for the sailor to dive into the
depths of the sea. This he did, and lo! he found the anchor clinging to
a sunken church-steeple. He set it free, but, out of curiosity, went
down still deeper, and far down below came to a magnificent place, the
inhabitants of which made him heartily welcome. An old man addressed him
and informed him that he had been the stork whose leg the sailor had
once made well, and that the latter was now in the real home of the
storks.'" Carstens compares this story with that of Frau Holle, whose
servant the stork, who brings the little children out of the
child-fountain of the Gotterburg, would seem to be. In North Germany
generally the storks are believed to be human beings in magical
metamorphosis, and hence no harm must be done them. Between the
household, upon whose roof the stork takes up his abode, and the family
of the bird, a close relation is thought to subsist. If his young ones
die, so will the children of the house; if no eggs are laid, no children
will be born that year; if a stork is seen to light upon a house, it is
regarded by the Wends of Lusatia as an indication that a child will be
born there the same year; in Switzerland the peasant woman about to give
birth to a child chants a brief appeal to the stork for aid. A great
variety of domestic, meteorological, and other superstitions are
connected with the bird, its actions, and mode of life. The common Low
German name of the stork, _Adebar_, is said to mean "luck-bringer";
in Dutch, he is called _ole vaer,_ "old father." After him the
wood-anemone is called in Low German _Hannoterblume,_
"stork's-flower." An interesting tale is "The Storks," in Hans Christian
Andersen.
_Bird-Language._
In the Golden Age, as the story runs, men were able to hold converse
with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, nor had a
diversity of dialects yet sprung up among them. In Eden of old the whole
world was of one tongue and one speech; nay more, men talked with the
gods and with God. Many legends of primitive peoples there are telling
how confusion first arose,--every continent has its Babel-myth,--and how
men came at last to be unable to comprehend each other's speech. The
Indians of Nova Scotia say that this occurred when Gluskap, the
culture-hero of the Micmacs, after giving a parting banquet to all
creatures of earth, sea, and air, "entered his canoe in the Basin of
Minas, and, sailing westward in the moonlight, disappeared. Then the
wolves, bears, and beavers, who had before been brothers, lost the gift
of common language, and birds and beasts, hating one another, fled into
the distant forests, where, to this day, the wolf howls and the loon
utters its sad notes of woe" (418. 185).
The Mexican legend of the deluge states that the vessel in which were
Coxcox,--the Mexican Noah,--and his wife, Xochiquetzal, stranded on a
peak of Colhuacan. To them were born fifteen sons, who, however, all
came into the world dumb, but a dove gave them fifteen tongues, and
thence are descended the fifteen languages and tribes of Anahuac (509.
517).
In later ages, among other peoples, the knowledge of the forgotten
speech of the lower creation was possessed by priests and seers alone,
or ascribed to innocent little children,--some of the power and wisdom
of the bygone Golden Age of the race is held yet to linger with the
golden age of childhood. In the beautiful lines,--
"O du Kindermund, o du Kindermund,
Unbewuszter Weisheit froh,
Vogelsprachekund, vogelsprachekund,
Wie Salamo!"
the poet Ruckert attributes to the child that knowledge of the language
of birds, which the popular belief of the East made part of the lore of
the wise King Solomon. Weil (547. 191) gives the Mussulman version of
the original legend:--
"In him [Solomon] David placed implicit confidence, and was guided by
him in the most difficult questions, for he had heard, in the night of
his [Solomon's] birth, the angel Gabriel exclaim, 'Satan's dominion is
drawing to its close, for this night a child is born, to whom Iblis and
all his hosts, together with all his descendants, shall be subject. The
earth, air, and water with all the creatures that live therein, shall be
his servants. He shall be gifted with nine-tenths of all the wisdom and
knowledge which Allah has granted to mankind, and understand not only
the languages of men, but those also of beasts and birds.'" Some
recollection of this appears in Ecclesiastes (x. 20), where we read,
"For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings
shall tell the matter," and in our own familiar saying "a little bird
told me," as well as in the Bulbul-hezar or talking bird of the
_Arabian Nights_, and its imitation "the little green bird who
tells everything," in the _Fairy Tales_ of the Comtesse d'Aunoy.
The interpretation of the cries of birds and animals into human speech
has also some light thrown upon it from this source. Various aspects of
this subject have been considered by Hopf (474), Swainson (539),
Treichel (372), Brunk, Grimm (462). The use of certain birds as oracles
by children is well known. A classical example is the question of the
Low German child:--
"Kukuk van Hewen,
"Wi lank sail ik lewen?'
["Cuckoo of Heaven,
How long am I to live?"]
Of King Solomon we are told: "He conversed longest with the birds, both
on account of their delicious language, which he knew as well as his
own, as also for the beautiful proverbs that are current among them."
The interpretation of the songs of the various birds is given as
follows:--
The cook: "Ye thoughtless men, remember your Creator."
The dove: "All things pass away; Allah alone is eternal."
The eagle: "Let our life be ever so long, yet it must end in death."
The hoopoo: "He that shows no mercy, shall not obtain mercy."
The kata: "Whosoever can keep silence goes through life most securely."
The nightingale: "Contentment is the greatest happiness."
The peacock: "As thou judgest, so shalt thou be judged."
The pelican: "Blessed be Allah in Heaven and Earth."
The raven: "The farther from mankind, the pleasanter."
The swallow: "Do good, for you shall be rewarded hereafter."
The syrdak: "Turn to Allah, O ye sinners."
The turtle-dove: "It were better for many a creature had it never been
born."
The King, it appears, chose the hoopoo and the cock for his companions,
and appointed the doves to dwell in the temple which he was to erect
(547. 200, 201). In fairy-tale and folk-lore bird-speech constantly
appears. A good example is the story "Wat man warm kann, wenn man blot
de Vageln richti verstan deit," included by Klaus Groth in his
_Quickborn_.
In the Micmac legend of the _Animal Tamers_, by collecting the
"horns" of the various animals a youthful hero comes to understand their
language (521. 347).
Longfellow, in his account of "Hiawatha's Childhood," has not forgotten
to make use of the Indian tradition of the lore of language of bird and
of beast possessed by the child:--
"Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in summer,
Where they hid themselves in winter,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Chickens.'
"Of all the beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them 'Hiawatha's Brothers.'"
In the Middle Ages the understanding of the language of birds, their
_Latin_, as it was called, ranked as the highest achievement of
human learning, the goal of wisdom and knowledge, and the thousand
rhyming questions asked of birds by children to-day are evidence of a
time when communication with them was deemed possible. Some remembrance
of this also lingers in not a few of the lullabies and nursery-songs of
a type corresponding to the following from Schleswig-Holstein:--
"Hor mal, lutje Kind
Wo dut lutje Vagel singt
Baben in de Hai!
Loop, lut Kind, un hal mi dat lut Ei."
Among the child-loving Eskimo we find many tales in which children and
animals are associated; very common are stories of children
metamorphosed into birds and beasts. Turner has obtained several legends
of this sort from the Eskimo of the Ungava district in Labrador. In one
of these, wolves are the gaunt and hungry children of a woman who had
not wherewithal to feed her numerous progeny, and so they were turned
into ravening beasts of prey; in another the raven and the loon were
children, whom their father sought to paint, and the loon's spots are
evidence of the attempt to this day; in a third the sea-pigeons or
guillemots are children who were changed into these birds for having
scared away some seals. The prettiest story, however, is that of the
origin of the swallows: Once there were some children who were
wonderfully wise, so wise indeed that they came to be called
_zulugagnak_, "like the raven," a bird that knows the past and the
future. One day they were playing on the edge of a cliff near the
village, and building toy-houses, when they were changed into birds.
They did not forget their childish occupation, however, and, even to
this day, the swallows come to the cliff to build their nests or houses
of mud,--"even the raven does not molest them, and Eskimo children love
to watch them" (544. 262, 263). From time immemorial have the life and
actions of the brute creation been associated with the first steps of
education and learning in the child.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL.
The mother's heart is the child's school-room.--_Henry Ward
Beecher_.
The father is known from the child.--_German Proverb_.
Learn young, learn fair,
Learn auld, learn mair.
--_Scotch Proverb._
We bend the tree when it is young.--_Bulgarian Proverb_.
Fools and bairns should na see things half done.
--_Scotch Proverb_.
No one is born master.--_Italian Proverb_.
_Mother as Teacher_.
_Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_ is a favourite
dictum of philosophy; primitive peoples might, perhaps, be credited with
a somewhat different crystallization of thought: _nihil est in puero
quod non prius in parenti_, "nothing is in the child which was not
before in the parent," for belief in prenatal influence of parent upon
child is widely prevalent. The following remarks, which were written of
the semi-civilized peoples of Annam and Tonquin, may stand, with
suitable change of terms, for very many barbarous and savage races:--
"The education of the children begins even before they come into the
world. The prospective mother is at once submitted to a kind of material
and moral _regime_ sanctioned by custom. Gross viands are removed
from her table, and her slightest movements are regarded that they may
be regular and majestic. She is expected to listen to the reading of
good authors, to music and moral chants, and to attend learned
societies, in order that she may fortify her mind by amusements of an
elevated character. And she endeavours, by such discipline, to assure to
the child whom she is about to bring into the world, intelligence,
docility, and fitness for the duties imposed by social life" (518. XXXI.
629).
Among primitive peoples these ceremonies, dietings, doctorings,
tabooings, number legion, as may be read in Ploss and Zmigrodzki.
The influence of the mother upon her child, beginning long before birth,
continued in some parts of the world until long after puberty. The
Spartan mothers even preserved "a power over their sons when arrived at
manhood," and at the puberty-dance, by which the Australian leaves
childhood behind to enter upon man's estate, his significant cry is: "My
mother sees me no more!" (398. 153). Among the Chinese, "at the ceremony
of going out of childhood, the passage from boyhood into manhood, the
goddess of children 'Mother,' ceases to have the superintendence of the
boy or girl, and the individual comes under the government of the gods
in general."
That women are teachers born, even the most uncultured of human races
have not failed to recognize, and the folk-faith in their ministrations
is world-wide and world-old; for, as Mrs. Browning tells us:--
"Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just);
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words;
Which things are corals to cut life upon,
Although such trifles."
Intellectually, as well as physically,--as the etymology of the name
seems to indicate,--the mother is the "former" of her child. As Henry
Ward Beecher has well said, "the mother's heart is the child's
school-room." Well might the Egyptian mother-goddess say (167. 261): "I
am the mother who shaped thy beauties, who suckled thee with milk; I
give thee with my milk festal things, that penetrate thy limbs with
life, strength, and youth; I make thee to become the--great ruler of
Egypt, lord of the space which the sun circles round." In the land of
the Pharaohs they knew in some dim fashion that "the hand that rocks the
cradle is the hand that rules the world."
The extensive role of the mother, as a teacher of the practical arts of
life, may be seen from the book of Professor Mason (113). Language,
religion, the social arts, house-building, skin-dressing, weaving,
spinning, animal-domestication, agriculture, are, with divers primitive
peoples, since they have in great part originated with her, or been
promoted chiefly by her efforts, left to woman as teacher and
instructor, and well has the mother done her work all over the globe.
The function of the mother as priestess--for woman has been the
preserver, as, to so large an extent, she has been the creator, of
religion--has been exercised age after age, and among people after
people. Henry Ward Beecher has said: "Every mother is a priestess
ordained by God Himself," and Professor Mason enlarges the same thought:
"Scarcely has the infant mind begun to think, ere this perpetual
priestess lights the fires of reverence and keeps them ever burning,
like a faithful vestal" (112. 12).
Though women and mothers have often been excluded from the public or the
secret ceremonials and observations of religion, the household in
primitive and in modern times has been the temple, of whose
_penetralia_ they alone have been the ministers.
_Imitation._
Tarde, in his monograph on the "Laws of Imitation," has shown the great
influence exerted among peoples of all races, of all grades and forms of
culture, by imitation, conscious or unconscious,--a factor of the
highest importance even at the present day and among those communities
of men most advanced and progressive. Speaking a little too broadly,
perhaps, he says (541. 15):--
"All the resemblances, of social origin, noticed in the social world are
the direct or indirect result of imitation in all its forms,--custom,
fashion, sympathy, obedience, instruction, education, naive or
deliberate imitation. Hence the excellence of that modern method which
explains doctrines or institutions by their history. This tendency can
only be generalized. Great inventors and great geniuses do sometimes
stumble upon the same thing together, but these coincidences are very
rare. And when they do really occur, they always have their origin in a
fund of common instruction upon which, independent of one another, the
two authors of the same invention have drawn; and this fund consists of
a mass of traditions of the past, of experiments, rude or more or less
arranged, and transmitted imitatively by language, the great vehicle of
all imitations."
In her interesting article on "Imitation in Children," Miss Haskell
observes: "That the imitative faculty is what makes the human being
educable, that it is what has made progressive civilization possible,
has always been known by philosophical educators. The energy of the
child must pass from potentiality to actuality, and it does so by the
path of _imitation_ because this path offers the least resistance
or the greatest attraction, or perhaps because there is no other road.
Whatever new and striking things he sees in the movements or condition
of objects about him, provided he already has the experience necessary
to apperceive this particular thing, he imitates" (260. 31).
In the pedagogy of primitive peoples imitation has an extensive
_role_ to play. Of the Twana Indians, of the State of Washington,
Rev. Mr. Eells observes: "Children are taught continually, from youth
until grown, to mimic the occupations of their elders." They have games
of ball, jumping and running races, and formerly "the boys played at
shooting with bows and arrows at a mark, and with spears, throwing at a
mark, with an equal number of children on each side, and sometimes the
older ones joined in." Now, however, "the'boys mimic their seniors in
the noise and singing and gambling, but without the gambling." The girls
play with dolls, and sometimes "the girls and boys both play in canoes,
and stand on half of a small log, six feet long and a foot wide, and
paddle around in the water with a small stick an inch in thickness; and,
in fact, play at most things which they see their seniors do, both
whites and Indians" (437. 90, 91). Concerning the Seminoles of Florida,
we are told: "The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he
is to make his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt
to nourish him, and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill; but,
as far as possible, she goes her own way and leaves the little fellow to
go his." Very early in life the child learns to help and to imitate its
elders. "No small amount," Mr. MacCauley tells us, "of the labour in a
Seminole household is done by children, even as young as four years of
age. They can stir the soup while it is boiling; they can aid in
kneading the dough for bread; they can wash the 'koonti' root, and even
pound it; they can watch and replenish the fire; they contribute in this
and many other small ways to the necessary work of the home" (496. 497,
498).
Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn reports: "As soon as the
children can run about, they are left almost to themselves; or, rather,
they begin to mimic their parents. As with the adults, so with the
children. Just as the grown-up woman works incessantly, while the men
alternately idle and hunt, so the boys run wild, playing not such
concerted games as in other parts of the world more usually form child's
play, but only with mimic bows and arrows; but the girls, as soon as
they can walk, begin to help the older women. Even the youngest girl can
peel a few cassava roots, watch a pot on the fire, or collect and carry
home a few sticks of firewood. The games of the boy are all such as
train him to fish and hunt when he grows up; the girl's occupations
teach her woman's work" (477. 219). The children imitate their elders in
other ways also, for in nearly every Indian house are to be seen toy
vessels of clay; for "while the Indian women of Guiana are shaping the
clay, their children, imitating them, make small pots and goglets" (477.
298). And in like manner have been born, no doubt, among other peoples,
some of the strange freaks of art which puzzle the _connoisseurs_
in the museums of Europe and America.
Mr. Powers, speaking of the domestic economy of the Achomawi Indians of
California, says: "An Achomawi mother seldom teaches her daughters any
of the arts of barbaric housekeeping before their marriage. They learn
them by imitation and experiment after they grow old enough to perceive
the necessity thereof" (519. 271). This peculiar neglect, however, is
not entirely absent from our modern civilization, for until very
recently no subject has been so utterly overlooked as the proper
training of young girls for their future duties as mothers and
housekeepers. The Achomawi, curiously enough, have the following custom,
which helps, no doubt, the wife whose education has been so imperfect:
"The parents are expected to establish a young couple in their lodge,
provide them with the needful basketry, and furnish them with cooked
food for some months, which indulgent parents sometimes continue for a
year or even longer; so that the young people have a more real honeymoon
than is vouchsafed to most civilized people."
Among the Battas of Sumatra, "It is one of the morning duties of women
and girls, even down to children of four and five years old, to bring
drinking-water in the _gargitis_, a water-vessel made of a thick
stalk of bamboo. The size and strength of growing girls are generally
measured by the number of _gargitis_ they can carry" (518. XXII.
110).
Of the Kaffir children Theal informs us: "At a very early age they
commence trials of skill against each other in throwing knobbed sticks
and imitation assegais. They may often be seen enjoying this exercise in
little groups, those of the same age keeping together, for there is no
greater tyrant in the world than a big Kaffir boy over his younger
fellows; when above nine or ten years old they practise sham-fighting
with sticks; an imitation hunt is another of their boyish diversions"
(543. 220).
Among the Apaches, as we learn from Reclus: "The child remains with its
mother until it can pluck certain fruits for itself, and has caught a
rat by its own unaided efforts. After this exploit, it goes and comes as
it lists, is free and independent, master of its civil and political
rights, and soon lost in the main body of the horde" (523. 131).
On the Andaman Islands, "little boys hunt out swarms of bees in the
woods and drive them away by fire. They are also expected regularly to
collect wood." From their tenth year they are "accustomed to use little
bows and arrows, and often attain great skill in shooting." The girls
"seek among the coral-reefs and in the swamps to catch little fish in
hand-nets." The Solomon Islands boy, as soon as he can walk a little,
goes along with his elders to hunt and fish (326. I. 6). Among the
Somali, of northeastern Africa, the boys are given small spears when ten
or twelve years old and are out guarding the milk-camels (481 (1891).
163).
Of the Eskimo of Baffin Land, Dr. Boas tells us that the children, "when
about twelve years old, begin to help their parents; the girls sewing
and preparing skins, the boys accompanying their fathers in hunting
expeditions" (402. 566). Mr. Powers records that he has seen a Wailakki
Indian boy of fourteen "run a rabbit to cover in ten minutes, split a
stick fine at one end, thrust it down the hole, twist it into its scut,
and pull it out alive" (519. 118).
Among the games and amusements of the Andamanese children, of whom he
says "though not borrowed from aliens, their pastimes, in many
instances, bear close resemblance to those in vogue among children in
this and other lands; notably is this the case with regard to those
known to us as blind-man's buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek,"--Mr.
Man enumerates the following: _mock pig-hunting_ (played after
dark); _mock turtle-catching_ (played in the sea); going after the
Evil Spirit of the Woods; swinging by means of long stout creepers;
swimming-races (sometimes canoe-races); pushing their way with rapidity
through the jungle; throwing objects upwards, or skimming through the
air; playing at "duck-and-drakes"; shooting at moving objects; wrestling
on the sand; hunting small crabs and fish and indulging in sham
banquets, comparable to the "doll's feast" with us; making miniature
canoes and floating them about in the water (498. 165).
_Education of Boys and Girls._
With the Dakota Indians, according to Mr. Riggs, the grandfather and
grandmother are often the principal teachers of the child. Under the
care of the father and grandfather the boy learns to shoot, hunt, and
fish, is told tales of war and daring exploits, and "when he is fifteen
or sixteen joins the first war-party and comes back with an eagle
feather in his head, if he is not killed and scalped by the enemy."
Among the amusements he indulges in are foot-races, horse-racing,
ball-playing, etc. Another branch of his education is thus described:
"In the long winter evenings, while the fire burns brightly in the
centre of the lodge, and the men are gathered in to smoke, he hears the
folk-lore and legends of his people from the lips of the older men. He
learns to sing the love-songs and the war-songs of the generations gone
by. There is no new path for him to tread, but he follows in the old
ways. He becomes a Dakota of the Dakota. His armour is consecrated by
sacrifices and offerings and vows. He sacrifices and prays to the stone
god, and learns to hold up the pipe to the so-called Great Spirit. He is
killed and made alive again, and thus is initiated into the mysteries
and promises of the Mystery Dance. He becomes a successful hunter and
warrior, and what he does not know is not worth knowing for a Dakota.
His education is finished. If he has not already done it, he can now
demand the hand of one of the beautiful maidens of the village" (524.
209, 210).
Under the care and oversight of the mother and grandmother the girl is
taught the elements of household economy, industrial art, and
agriculture. Mr. Biggs thus outlines the early education of woman among
these Indians: "She plays with her 'made child,' or doll, just as
children in other lands do. Very soon she learns to take care of the
baby; to watch over it in the lodge, or carry it on her back while the
mother is away for wood or dressing buffalo-robes. Little girl as she
is, she is sent to the brook or lake for water. She has her little
work-bag with awl and sinew, and learns to make small moccasins as her
mother makes large ones. Sometimes she goes with her mother to the wood
and brings home her little bundle of sticks. When the camp moves, she
has her small pack as her mother carries the large one, and this pack is
sure to grow larger as her years increase. When the corn is planting,
the little girl has her part to perform. If she cannot use the hoe yet,
she can at least gather off the old corn-stalks. Then the garden is to
be watched while the god-given maize is growing. And when the
harvesting comes, the little girl is glad for the corn-roasting." And so
her young life runs on. She learns bead-work and ornamenting with
porcupine quills, embroidering with ribbons, painting, and all the arts
of personal adornment, which serve as attractions to the other sex. When
she marries, her lot and her life (Mr. Riggs says) are hard, for woman
is much less than man with these Dakotas (524. 210).
More details of girl-life among savage and primitive peoples are to be
found in the pages of Professor Mason (113. 207-211). In America, the
education varied from what the little girl could pick up at her mother's
side between her third and thirteenth years, to the more elaborate
system of instruction in ancient Mexico, where, "annexed to the temples
were large buildings used as seminaries for girls, a sort of aboriginal
Wellesley or Vassar" (113 208).
_Games and Plays._
In the multifarious games of children, echoes, imitations, re-renderings
of the sober life of their elders and of their ancestors of the long ago,
recur again and again. The numerous love games, which Mr. Newell
(313. 39-62) and Miss Gomme (243) enumerate, such as "Knights of
Spain," "Three kings," "Here comes a Duke a-roving," "Tread, tread the
Green Grass," "I'll give to you a Paper of Pins," "There she stands a
lovely Creature," "Green Grow the Rushes, O!" "The Widow with Daughters
to marry," "Philander's March," "Marriage," etc., corresponding to many
others all over the globe, evidence the social instincts of child-hood
as well as the imitative tendencies of youth.
Under "Playing at Work" (313. 80-92), Mr. Newell has classed a large
number of children's games and songs, some of which now find their
representatives in the kindergarten, this education of the child by
itself having been so modified as to form part of the infantile
curriculum of study. Among such games are: "Threading the Needle," "Draw
a Bucket of Water," "Here I Brew and here I Bake," "Here we come
gathering Nuts of May," "When I was a Shoemaker," "Do, do, pity my
Case," "As we go round the Mulberry Bush," "Who'll be the Binder?"
"Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley grows." Mr. Newell includes in this
category, also, that well-known dance, the "Virginia Reel," which he
interprets as an imitation of weaving, something akin to the
"Hemp-dressers' Dance," of the time of George III., in England.
In a recent interesting and valuable essay, "Education by Plays and
Games," by Mr. G. E. Johnson, of Clark University,--an effort "to
present somewhat more correctly than has been done before, the
educational value of play, and to suggest some practical applications to
the work of education in the grades above the kindergarten,"--we have
presented to us a list of some five hundred games, classified according
to their value for advancing mental or physical education, for
cultivating and strengthening the various faculties of mind and body.
These games have also been arranged by Mr. Johnson, into such classes
and divisions as might be held to correspond to the needs and
necessities of the pupils in each of the eight grades above the
kindergarten. Of the educational value of play and of "playing at work,"
there can be no doubt in the mind of any one at all acquainted with the
history of the individual and the history of the race. As Mr. Johnson
justly observes (269.100): "The field of the study of play is very wide;
the plays are well-nigh infinite, and as varied as life itself. No one
can estimate the value of them. Given right toys and surroundings, the
young child has an almost perfect school. It is marvellous how well he
learns, Preyer does not overestimate the facts when he says the child in
the first three or four years of his life learns as much as the student
in his entire university course. In the making of mud pies and doll
dresses, sand-pile farms and miniature roads, tiny dams and
water-wheels, whittled-out boats, sleds, dog-harnesses, and a thousand
and one other things, the child receives an accumulation of facts, a
skill of hand, a trueness of eye, a power of attention and quickness of
perception; and in flying kites, catching trout, in pressing leaves and
gathering stones, in collecting stamps, and eggs, and butterflies, a
culture also, seldom appreciated by the parent or teacher."
Upon the banner of the youthful hosts might well be inscribed _in hoc
ludo vincemus_. Yet there is danger that the play-theory may be
carried to excess. Mr. James L. Hughes, discussing "The Educational
Value of Play and the Recent Play-Movement in Germany," remarks: "The
Germans had the philosophy of play, the English had an intuitive love of
play, and love is a greater impelling force than philosophy. English
young men never played in order to expand their lungs, to increase their
circulation, to develop their muscles in power and agility, to improve
their figures, to add grace to their bearing, to awaken and refine their
intellectual powers, or to make them manly, courageous, and chivalrous.
They played enthusiastically for the mere love of play, and all these,
and other advantages resulted from their play" (265. 328).
Swimming is an art soon learned by the children of some primitive races.
Mr. Man says of the Andaman Islanders: "With the exception of some of
the e.rem-tag.a-(inlanders), a knowledge of the art of swimming is
common to members of both sexes; the _children_ even, learning
almost as soon as they can run, speedily acquire great proficiency"
(498. 47).
_Language._
With some primitive peoples the ideas as to language-study are pretty
much on a par with those prevalent in Europe at a date not so very
remote from the present. Of the Kato Pomo Indians of California, Mr.
Powers remarks: "Like the Kai Pomo, their northern neighbours, they
forbid their squaws from studying languages--which is about the only
accomplishment possible to them save dancing--principally, it is
believed, in order to prevent them from gadding about and forming
acquaintances in neighbouring valleys, for there is small virtue among
the unmarried of either sex. But the men pay considerable attention to
linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who cannot speak most of the
Pomo dialects within a day's journey of his ancestral valley. The
chiefs, especially, devote no little care to the training of their sons
as polyglot diplomatists; and Robert White affirms that they frequently
send them to reside several months with the chiefs of contiguous valleys
to acquire the dialects there in vogue" (519. 150).
Nevertheless, as Professor Mason observes, among primitive races,
woman's share in the "invention, dissemination, conservation, and
metamorphosis of language" has been very great, and she has been _par
excellence_ the teacher of language, as indeed she is to-day in our
schools when expression and _savoir faire_ in speech, rather than
deep philological learning and dry grammatical analysis, have been the
object of instruction.
_Geography._
Much has been said and written about the wonderful knowledge of
geography and topography possessed by the Indian of America, and by
other primitive peoples as well. The following passage from Mr. Powers'
account of the natives of California serves to explain some of this
(519. 109):--
"Besides the coyote-stories with which gifted squaws amuse their
children, and which are common throughout this region, there prevails
among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name
of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise
that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van
Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest
precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders,
conspicuous trees, springs, etc., each one of which objects has its own
individual name. It is perilous for an Indian to be found outside of his
tribal boundaries, wherefore it stands him well in hand to make himself
acquainted with the same early in life. Accordingly, the squaws teach
these things to their children in a kind of sing-song not greatly unlike
that which was the national _furore_ some time ago in rural
singing-schools, wherein they melodiously chanted such pleasing items of
information as this: 'California. Sacramento, on the Sacramento River.'
Over and over, time and again, they rehearse all these bowlders, etc.,
describing each minutely and by name, with its surroundings. Then when
the children are old enough, they take them around to beat the bounds
like Bumble the Beadle; and so wonderful is the Indian memory naturally,
and so faithful has been their instruction, that the little shavers
generally recognize the objects from the descriptions of them previously
given by their mothers. If an Indian knows but little of this great
world more than pertains to boundary bush and bowlder, he knows his own
small fighting-ground infinitely better than any topographical engineer
can learn it."
Mr. Powers' reference to "beating the bounds like Bumble the Beadle" is
an apt one. Mr. Frederick Sessions has selected as one of his
_Folk-Lore Topics_ the subject of "Beating the Bounds" (352), and
in his little pamphlet gives us much interesting information concerning
the part played by children in these performances. The author tells us:
"One of the earliest of my childish pleasures was seeing the Mayor and
Corporation, preceded by Sword-bearer, Beadles, and Blue Coat School
boys, going in procession from one city boundary-stone to another,
across the meadows and the river, or over hedges and gardens, or
anything else to which the perambulated border-line took them. They were
followed along the route by throngs of holiday makers. Many of the
crowd, and all the Blue boys, were provided with willow-wands,
_peeled_, if I remember rightly, with which each boundary mark was
well flogged. The youngest boys were bumped against the 'city stones.'"
In the little town of Charlbury in Oxfordshire, "the perambulations seem
to have been performed mostly by boys, accompanied by one or more of
their seniors." At Houghton, a village near St. Ives in Huntingdonshire:
"The bounds are still beaten triennially. They are here marked by holes
in some places, and by stones or trees in others. The procession starts
at one of the holes. Each new villager present is instructed in the
position of this corner of the boundary by having his head forcibly
thrust into the hole, while he has to repeat a sort of mumbo-jumbo
prayer, and receives three whacks with a shovel. He pays a shilling for
his 'footing' (boys only pay sixpence), and then the forty or fifty
villagers march off to the opposite corner and repeat the process,
except the monetary part, and regale themselves with bread and cheese
and beer, paid for by the farmers who now occupy any portion of the old
common lands."
In Russia, before the modern system of land-registration came into
vogue, "all the boys of adjoining Cossack village communes were
'collected and driven like flocks of sheep to the frontier, whipped at
each boundary-stone, and if, in after years two whipped lads, grown into
men, disputed as to the precise spot at which they had been castigated,
then the oldest inhabitant carrying a sacred picture from the church,
led the perambulations, and acted as arbitrator."
Here also ought to be mentioned perhaps, as somewhat akin and
reminiscent of like practices among primitive peoples, "the _blason
populaire_ (as it is neatly called in French), in which the
inhabitants of each district or city are nicely ticketed off and
distinguished by means of certain abnormalities of feature or form, or
certain mental peculiarities attributed to them" (204.19). In parts of
Hungary and Transylvania a somewhat similar practice is in vogue (392
(1892). 128).
_Story-Telling._
Some Indian children have almost the advantages of the modern home in
the way of story-telling. Clark informs us (420.109):--
"Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men who have devoted a great
deal of time to learning the myths and stories of their people, and who
possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid imagination. The mother
sends for one of these, and, having prepared a feast for him, she and
her little 'brood,' who are curled up near her, await the fairy stories
of the dreamer, who, after his feast and smoke, entertains them for
hours. Many of these fanciful sketches or visions are interesting and
beautiful in their rich imagery, and have been at times given erroneous
positions in ethnological data."
Knortz refers in glowing terms to the _adisoke-winini_, or
"storyteller" of the Chippeway Indians, those gifted men, who entertain
their fellows with the tales and legends of the race, and who are not
mere reciters, but often poets and transformers as well (_Skizzen_,
294).
So, too, among the Andaman Islanders, "certain mythic legends are
related to the young by _okopai-ads_ [shamans], parents, and
others, which refer to the supposed adventures or history of remote
ancestors, and though the recital not unfrequently evokes much mirth,
they are none the less accepted as veracious" (498. 95).
_Morals._
Among some of the native tribes of California we meet with
_i-wa-musp_, or "men-women" (519. 132). Among the Yuki, for
example, there were men who dressed and acted like women, and "devoted
themselves to the instruction of the young by the narration of legends
and moral tales." Some of these, Mr. Powers informs us, "have been known
to shut themselves up in the assembly-hall for the space of a month,
with brief intermissions, living the life of a hermit, and spending the
whole time in rehearsing the tribal-history in a sing-song monotone to
all who chose to listen."
Somewhat similar, without the hermit-life, appear to be the functions of
the orators and "prophets" of the Miwok and the peace-chiefs, or
"shell-men," of the Pomo (519. 157, 352). Of the Indians of the Pueblo
of Tehua, Mr. Lummis, in his entertaining volume of fairy-tales, says:
"There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has to
be content with the bare command, 'Do thus'; for each he learns a fairy-
tale designed to explain how people first came to know that it was right
to do thus, and detailing the sad results which befell those who did
otherwise." The old men appear to be the storytellers, and their tales
are told in a sort of blank verse (302. 5).
Mr. Grinnell, in his excellent book about the Blackfeet,--one of the
best books ever written about the Indians,--gives some interesting
details of child-life. Children are never whipped, and "are instructed
in manners as well as in other more general and more important matters."
Among other methods of instruction we find that "men would make long
speeches to groups of boys playing in the camps, telling them what they
ought to do to be successful in life," etc. (464. 188-191).
Of the Delaware Indians we are told that "when a mere boy the Indian lad
would be permitted to sit in the village councilhouse, and hear the
assembled wisdom of the village or his tribe discuss the affairs of
state and expound the meaning of the _keekg_' (beads composing the
wampum belts).... In this way he early acquired maturity of thought, and
was taught the traditions of his people, and the course of conduct
calculated to win him the praise of his fellows" (516. 43). This reminds
us of the Roman senator who had his child set upon his knee during the
session of that great legislative and deliberative body.
_Playthings and Dolls._
As Professor Mason has pointed out, the cradle is often the "play-house"
of the child, and is decked out to that end in a hundred ways (306.
162). Of the Sioux cradle, Catlin says:--"A broad hoop of elastic wood
passes around in front of the child's face to protect it in case of a
fall, from the front of which is suspended a little toy of exquisite
embroidery for the child to handle and amuse itself with. To this and
other little trinkets hanging in front of it, there are attached many
little tinselled and tinkling things of the brightest colours to amuse
both the eyes and the ears of the child. While travelling on horseback,
the arms of the child are fastened under the bandages, so as not to be
endangered if the cradle falls, and when at rest they are generally
taken out, allowing the infant to reach and amuse itself with the little
toys and trinkets that are placed before it and within its reach" (306.
202). In like manner are "playthings of various kinds" hung to the
awning of the birch-bark cradles found in the Yukon region of Alaska. Of
the Nez Perce, we read: "To the hood are attached medicine-bags, bits of
shell, haliotis perhaps, and the whole artistic genius of the mother is
in play to adorn her offspring." The old chronicler Lafiteau observed of
the Indians of New France: "They put over that half-circle [at the top
of the cradle] little bracelets of porcelain and other little trifles
that the Latins call _crepundia_, which serve as an ornament and as
playthings to divert the child" (306. 167, 187, 207).
And so is it elsewhere in the world. Some of the beginnings of art in
the race are due to the mother's instinctive attempts to please the eyes
and busy the hands of her tender offspring. The children of primitive
peoples have their dolls and playthings as do those of higher races. In
an article descriptive of the games and amusements of the Ute Indians,
we read: "The boy remains under maternal care until he is old enough to
learn to shoot and engage in manly sports and enjoyments. Indian
children play, laugh, cry, and act like white children, and make their
own play-things from which they derive as much enjoyment as white
children" (480. IV. 238).
Of the Seminole Indians of Florida, Mr. MacCauley says that among the
children's games are skipping and dancing, leap-frog, teetotums,
building a merry-go-round, carrying a small make-believe rifle of stick,
etc. They also "sit around a small piece of land, and, sticking blades
of grass into the ground, name it a 'corn-field,'" and "the boys kill
small birds in the bush with their bows and arrows, and call it
'turkey-hunting.'" Moreover, they "have also dolls (bundles of rags,
sticks with bits of cloth wrapped around them, etc.), and build houses
for them which they call 'camps'" (496. 506).
Of the Indians of the western plains, Colonel Dodge says: "The little
girls are very fond of dolls, which their mothers make and dress with
considerable skill and taste. Their baby houses are miniature teepees,
and they spend as much time and take as much pleasure in such play as
white girls" (432. 190). Dr. Boas tells us concerning the Eskimo of
Baffin Land: "Young children are always carried in their mothers' hoods,
but when about a year and a half old they are allowed to play on the
bed, and are only carried by their mothers when they get too
mischievous." The same authority also says: "Young children play with,
toys, sledges, kayaks, boats, bow and arrows, and dolls. The last are
made in the same way by all the tribes, a wooden body being clothed with
scraps of deerskin cut in the same way as the clothing of the men" (402.
568, 571). Mr. Murdoch has described at some length the dolls and toys
of the Point Barrow Eskimo. He remarks that "though several dolls and
various suits of miniature clothing were made and brought over for sale,
they do not appear to be popular with the little girls." He did not see
a single girl playing with a doll, and thinks the articles collected may
have been made rather for sale than otherwise. Of the boys, Mr. Murdoch
says: "As soon as a boy is able to walk, his father makes him a little
bow suited to his strength, with blunt arrows, with which he plays with
the other boys, shooting at marks--for instance the fetal reindeer
brought home from the spring hunt--till he is old enough to shoot small
birds and lemmings" (514. 380, 383).
In a recent extensive and elaborately illustrated article, Dr. J. W.
Fewkes has described the dolls of the Tusayan Indians (one of the Pueblo
tribes). Of the _tihus_, or carved wooden dolls, the author says
(226. 45): "These images are commonly mentioned by American visitors to
the Tusayan Pueblos as idols, but there is abundant evidence to show
that they are at present used simply as children's playthings, which are
made for that purpose and given to the girls with that thought in mind."
Attention is called to the difficulty of drawing the line between a doll
and an idol among primitive peoples, the connection of dolls with
religion, psychological evidence of which lingers with us to-day in the
persistent folk-etymology which connects _doll_ with _idol_.
The following remarks of Dr. Fewkes are significant: "These figurines
[generally images of deities or mythological personages carved in true
archaic fashion] are generally made by participants in the
_Ni-man-Ka-tci-na_, and are presented to the children in July or
August at the time of the celebration of the farewell of the
_Ka-tci'-nas_ [supernatural intercessors between men and gods]. It
is not rare to see the little girls after the presentation carrying the
dolls about on their backs wrapped in their blankets in the same manner
in which babies are carried by their mothers or sisters. Those dolls
which are more elaborately made are generally hung up as ornaments in
the rooms, but never, so far as I have investigated the subject, are
they worshipped. The readiness with which they are sold for a proper
remuneration shows that they are not regarded as objects of reverence."
But, as Dr. Fewkes himself adds, "It by no means follows that they may
not be copies of images which have been worshipped, although they now
have come to have a strictly secular use." Among some peoples, perhaps,
the dolls, images of deities of the past, or even of the present, may
have been used to impart the fundamentals of theology and miracle-story,
and the play-house of the children may have been at times a sort of
religious kindergarten of a primitive type. Worthy of note in this
connection is the statement of Castren that "the Finns manufacture a
kind of dolls, or _paras_, out of a child's cap filled with tow and
stuck at the end of a rod. The fetich thus made is carried nine times
round the church, with the cry 'synny para' (Para be born) repeated
every time to induce a _hal'tia_--that is to say, a spirit--to
enter into it" (388. 108).
A glance into St. Nicholas, or at the returns to the syllabus on dolls
sent out by President Hall, is sufficient to indicate the farreaching
associations of the subject, while the doll-congress of St. Petersburg
has had its imitators both in Europe and America. A bibliography of
doll-poems, doll-descriptions, doll-parties, doll-funerals, and the like
would be a welcome addition to the literature of dolls, while a
doll-museum of extended scope would be at once entertaining and of great
scientific value.
The familiar phrase "to cry for the moon" corresponds to the French
"prendre la lune avec ses dents." In illustration of this proverbial
expression, which Rabelais used in the form _Je ne suis point clerc
pour prendre la lune avec les dents_, Loubens tells the amusing story
of a servant who, when upbraided by the parents for not giving to a
child what it wanted and for which it had been long crying, answered:
"You must give it him yourself. A quarter-of-an-hour ago, he saw the
moon at the bottom of a bucket of water, and wants me to give it him.
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