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- Notes Preface
- But Why Bother with Childhood Challenges in Studying Childhood
- Outline of the Volume Balancing the Equation: Gerontocracy
- In my diagram, contrasting our neontocracy with the rest of the world’s gerontocracy, I created a composite. Pamela Reynolds, actually characterized the Tonga society she studied in much the same way
| Supplemental Notes
The Anthropology of Childhood was published in November, 2008, however, I delivered the current manuscript to the publisher over a year earlier. My search for cases relevant to this effort did not cease, hence the need for this supplement. It offers a foretaste of additions and revisions in the next edition. The Supplement begins with an Errata section—mercifully short. Then I provide Notes, in largely undigested form, mapped into their appropriate chapter/section from the book. Certain topics have been blessed with lots of new material, in particular, on fertility and reproduction, child labor and fosterage, apprenticeship, and child soldiers, street kids and children’s agency. Additionally, the reader will find color versions of the plates from the book. I hope the user finds these notes helpful and will add to this archive by calling my attention to omissions. Errata Ch 1 p. 1 demonstrated profound and unpredicted influences of culture and formal schooling (Lancy and Strathern 1981; Lancy 1983; p. 6 Note 7 It is interesting that childhood was shorter for Neanderthals, but then their tool technology was also simpler than that of humans and, presumably, took less time to master (Hawcroft and Dennell 2000). p. 18 calorific=caloric Ch 2 p. 73 Note 93 Neonatal medicine, while evolving into a multi-billion dollar industry, has also fashioned an entire culture of terms and practices to humanize or “normalize” a biologically defective organism (Isaacson 2002). Ch 3 p. 81, high-altitude living imposes Ch 4 Ch 5 p. 183 In Tamang (Nepal) custom, the first rite of passage – for boys only – is the chewar, a ceremony marking the first haircut. It is performed by the mother’s brother (Fricke 1994: 133). Ch 6 Ch 7 p. 198 “. . . youngsters seem to deliberately exploit R&T. . . as a way in which to publicly exhibit their dominance over a peer. (Pellegrini 2002: 446) p. 248 “Zapotec (Mexico) children¹s excellent command of ethnobotany is described
page 239 “He could also use the cattle terminology to be precise in telling an owner about a beast which has strayed or one that had a sore hoof, or one that was giving an exceptionally good or poor flow of milk. p. 272 Among the p. 279 we frequently see the creation of distinct warrior sub-cultures into which young men are inducted (Gilmore 2001: 209). p. 280 The Creek p. 301 During this profound and protracted transition, a girl’s chances of continuing her education or economic advancement may depend on her access to contraception to avoid the pregnancy that—custom demands—should end her single status
p. 357 . . . we need to balance out concerns for the rights of children with a recognition that “universal” rights are often based on ethnocentric definitions of childhood. (Holloway and Valentine 2000: 10) Page 203 response from Marjorie Goodwin to my discussion of her work: With respect to your footnote about my 1998 article on p. 203... I took out the example from the white Southern, middle class, (more adjectives could apply such as Unitarian, children in a school where the principal read Deborah Tannen, etc.) in my book The Hidden Life of Girls when discussing hop scotch, because I found that white middle class girls in California are also able to be quite confrontational. In fact the book deals a lot with the ways in which girls practice exclusion, play status games, and how their ways of negotiating in games are similar across ethnic groups. I compare about six different groups in the book, as compared with the 1998 article which I admit portrayed middle class in a skewed way. When I found out that Deborah Tannen was using the 1998 article in her classes I got really concerned about what implications that article had and eliminated the example of “Southern white girls.” Email received 1/5/09. p. 205, line 18: Garry Chick Notes Preface Cecylia Maslowska assisted with translations of Gerd Spittler’s Hirtenarbeit and the late Renate Posthofen with Barbara Polak’s work in German. Sarah Gordon assisted with material in French. Chapter One: Where Do Children Come From? Is There Such a Thing as Childhood? Wicks, Ann Barrott and Avril, Ellen B. (2002) Introduction: Children in Chinese Art. Ann Barrott Wicks (Ed.), Children in Chinese Art. (pp. 1-30). Honolulu: HI: University of Hawaii. “Possibly the earliest identifiable representation of a children in Chinese art is a small jade plaque dating from the fourth century B.C., excavated from the royal Zhongshan tombs of Hebei province. Found along with similar jade plaques of three female adults, the child is depicted frontally, wearing a skirt with an unusual checkered pattern that matches the clothing of the adults. The child’s facial features are not distinguished from those of the adults; the short stature and hairstyle are the only indications that the figure is indeed a child. The head appears to be shaved except for a small tuft of hair, or topknot, in a style that was common for young boys throughout most of China’s long history; thus the child is presumably male.” (Wicks 2002: 29) “The negligibility of childhood demonstrated by the infrequent portrayals of children is consistent with the attitude toward children that is reflected in Han burial practices. Prescriptive texts suggest that mortuary rites were not performed until a child was at least eight sui (Chinese years), and even then in an abbreviated version.” (Wicks 2002: 30) Shon, Mee-Ryong (2002) Korean early childhood education: Colonization and resistance. In Gaile S. Cannella and Joe L. Kincheloe (Eds.), Kidworld: Childhood Studies, Global Perspectives, and Education. Pp. 137-160. New York: Peter Lang. “Generally, the concept of “childhood” as a separate group from adults did not historically exist in Korean. By the time children (infant and toddler years according to the western concept) were trained in physical self-control, children leaped into the adult world by staying with elders, by practicing anticipated roles as males and females, and by engaging in early marriage.” (Shon 2002: 141) Crawford, Sally (1999) Childhood in Anglo-Saxon England. Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton. “’In the Middle Ages, children were generally ignored until they were no longer children.’” (Crawford 1999: 168) Heywood, Colin (2001) A History of Childhood: Children and Childhood in the West from Medieval to Modern Times. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. “Childhood is thus to a considerable degree a function of adult expectations.” (Heywood 2001: 9) But Why Bother with Childhood? Challenges in Studying Childhood Little, Christopher A. J. L. (2008) Becoming an Asabano: The Socialization of Asabano Children, Duranmin, West Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Unpublished Master’s Thesis. Trent University. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. “Asabano children of Yakob Village, Duranmin, West Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG)…” (Little 2008: ii) “There are many difficulties involved in working with children that can complicate research and should be noted.” (Little 2008: 29) “Initiating oneself as an adult into children's groups can prove difficult, particularly if the researcher is especially foreign to the children. It took me more than week, for example, before many children felt comfortable enough to talk with me or have me sit around with them. Some children, particularly the youngest girls, never overcame their fear of me and there was one child that broke out into hysterics every time I walked near her, up until my very last day.” (Little 2008: 29) “Undoubtedly many children were intimidated by me and unaccustomed to an adult showing so much interest in them.” (Little 2008: 29) “Children can be manipulative, as others have noted, and working with children can also expose one to the manipulation of adults. Some children would constantly harass me for cookies, crackers, or candy, and would assert that our good relationship depended on it. … The father of a family that I had been spending much time with told me that I would have to send him and his children school books, paper, and pens because I had been studying them. His requests later grew to include clothing for the children, himself, his wife, as well as some that he could sell for profit; a tent; a sleeping bag; the best quality soccer cleats that I could buy; and new seeds for his garden.” (Little 2008: 30) “Adult community members would often attempt to force children to talk to me, which never worked, and at other times the same individuals would berate the children for bothering the “white man” if they played or sat nearby. … Adults would also tell children how to respond to my questions—even hitting them if their answers were not something they understood me to be interested in. … It was nearly impossible to coax children into doing anything or answering a question in which they did not have some short-term interest.” (Little 2008: 31) “This was due to a combination of trepidation and also because Asabano children, like children everywhere, are somewhat unruly.” (Little 2008: 31) “Other children simply did not respond to questions about dreaming or spirits. These individuals maintained eye contact until I had posed my question, at which point they would simply wander away, stare at the ground, nod confusedly, or start talking (Little 2008: 32) about things like hunting or eating, which were presumably of greater interest to them. A great many times my line of questioning was derailed by a simple silence as children either did not understand or care to respond.” (Little 2008: 33) “The communicative norms of children at Yakob—and in many ways adults as well—are somewhat of an anathema to anthropological research, which relies upon a clear question and answer format. Many children are loathe to answer simple questions let alone those that relate to abstract concepts or beliefs. … Another challenge to work at Yakob is that people do not know the age of their children, probably because it is of little relevance or interest to them.” (Little 2008: 36) “My interaction with young girls, relative to young boys was more limited. Firstly, this group is much more closely associated with their mothers and thus, the domicile. While young boys arrange themselves, on an almost daily basis, into bands to play or hunt, young girls do no not.” (Little 2008: 37) “Childhood in Yakob is characterized by much more independence … which serves to inculcate in the children, as Mead (1962[1935]:209) remarks of the Mundugumur, "a sturdy degree of independence." Little discipline is given to these children—by either parents or other adults—and that which is, is pursued without much vigour.” (Little 2008: 49) Gurven, Michael and Walker, Robert (2006) Energetic demand of multiple dependents and the evolution of slow human growth. Proceedings of the Royal Society 273: 835-841. Simulation study supports the thesis that slow human growth followed by a rapid adolescent growth spurt may have facilitated rising human fertility rates and greater investments in neural capital. In effect, because dependent offspring are growing slowly, their energetic needs are relatively easy to meet. By adolescence, children should be better able to acquire their own caloric needs, so a growth spurt makes sense. It provides the somatic basis for child-bearing. My weaving together biological and cultural anthropology is currently out-of-fashion. But I would cite the late Don Tuzin’s chastisement of Marshall Sahlins—the great nay-sayer of the biological or evolutionary perspective. “Sahlins, it seems, would have us ignore these contributions and indulge in that sterile narcissism toward which anthropology is fatally tempted, viz., the reifying error entailed in the autonomy of culture…” (Gurven 2006: 67). Tuzin, Donald (1980) The Voice of the Tambaran: Truth and Illusion in Ilahita Arapesh Religion. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Outline of the Volume Balancing the Equation: Gerontocracy Seymour, Susan C. (2001). Child care in India: An examination of the "Household Size/Infant Indulgence" hypothesis. Cross-Cultural Research (35): 3-22. Research carried out in Bhubaneswar, capital of Orissa state, west India. “In the more traditional, patrifocal families of the Old Town, early child care in the 1960s was focused on the physical well-being of the child—holding, carrying, sleeping with, ritually bathing, and nursing—and was provided by many household members. Caretakers were not, however, quick to respond to an infant’s signals for attention and did not lavish special attention on young children. In fact, focusing special attention on an infant was considered dangerous because it might attract the evil eye or some other undesirable force that would endanger the child’s life. Furthermore, children’s expressions of distress or displeasure during nursing or the daily ritual bath were usually ignored. Mothers, for example, rarely nursed a child to satisfaction but stopped and let her cry for a while before continuing the intermittent feeding process. The general atmosphere in middle- and upper-status Old Town households was one of children being taken for granted, given physical care and protection, and little other special attention. And children quickly learned that care and attention came from a variety of other persons, not just from one’s mother. For example, mothers accounted for only 53% of all nurturant acts directed to infants and young children. Grandmothers and older female siblings accounted for another 27%, with the remainder distributed among such other household members as fathers, aunts, male siblings, and cousins.” (p. 14). “…there were numerous constraints put on young mothers to prevent them from focusing too much attention on a new infant. Close, intimate mother-child bonds were viewed as potentially disruptive to the collective well-being of the extended family…. In such families, much early child care was organized so as to subtly push the infant away from an exclusive dependence on its mother toward membership in the larger group.” (p. 15) Balancing the equationIn my diagram, contrasting our neontocracy with the rest of the world’s gerontocracy, I created a composite. Pamela Reynolds, actually characterized the Tonga society she studied in much the same way: Reynolds, Pamela (1991) Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. “I have pictured the life cycles as a funnel drawing the person—as born undifferentiated into society on earth (nyika)—up until he or she dies, having acquired under normal circumstances full membership rights and a ticket to joining the host of shades (mizimu). … In the first stage when a child is born dead he/she is returned straight to the earth. In the past, and sometimes still, the infant was placed in a pot make of earth (yet symbolizing life-giving qualities of grain and water) and then buried in an anthill far from the homestead. Anthills possess ritual significance. If the infant lives for a week or two before dying, he or she is buried closer to the homestead in a grave, but no formal ritual is observed and only women attend the burial (stage two). Colson (1962:15) notes that, formerly, when a child died before it was named, there was no mourning for no shades were involved. She adds, ‘Even today, the old women will tell the mother to hush her wailing, saying this in only a ghost (cello) or only a person (muntu), and the mourning is usually curtailed.’ The death of a child who has cut his teeth is marked by ritual procedure that takes half as long as that followed on the death of an adult, but it is otherwise the same. The child is buried within the homestead clearing (stage three). (Reynolds 1991: 97) From the age of about ten the ritual of burial is the same for a child as for an adult. The grave is dug within the homestead clearing. The death of a child over ten differs from that of an adult accorded full status in the society only in that the spirit of a child is not recalled a year after the funeral as is the spirit of an adult. Only those who reproduce (both as parents and householders) are granted full adult status after death, only their spirits are secured a position of influence over the living.” (Reynolds 1991: 98) 
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