Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1881 — Child-Life on the Amazons. [ARTICLE]

Child-Life on the Amazons.

Mr. Herbert H. Smith, writing in Scribner ot “An Indian Village on the Amazons,” thus describes a very interesting phase of tropical life: Child-life here is an exceedingly curious study; the quiet creatures are so different from our romping American boys and girls. • They get few caresses and give none; mother-love is mechanical; there Is nothing of that overflow of tenderness, that constant watchful care, that sheds such a halo around our homes. The babies vegetate in their steady brown fashion, seldom crying or laughing, but lying all day in their hammock-cradles and watching everything around them with keen eyes. As soon as the little boys and girls can toddle about they are left pretty much to their own resources, tumbling up the back stairs of life on a diet of mandioca meal and fish. The parents seldom punish their children, for they are very docile; when they do, the little ones pucker up their mouths and look sullen, but do not cry. Pleasure is expressed by a smile—among the little girls very often by a broad grin, with abundant show of teeth—but an articulate laugh is a rarity. It is interesting to watch how the mental traits of the race appear even in the young babies. If a plaything is given them they examine it gravely for a little while, and then let it drop. Observe how different from white babies actions. A bright little six-months-old at home has Tour distinct methods of investigation: first, by looking; second, by touching; then by putting the object in its mouth, and finally by banging it against the floor. The brown rnenino just looks; he does 'not investigate at all. As the children grow Wilder the same trait is apparent in almost every case. An Indian is content to hear or see a thing, without troubling himself about the whys or wherefore; even such incomprehensible pursuits as fossil collecting, or butterfly catching, or sketching, provoke hardly any curiosity. The people look on quietly, sometimes asking a question or two, but soon dismissiug the subject from their minds as something they are incapable of understanding. With all the crowding to see the lady of our party, hardly a person asked why she came. So, too, the babies are unambitious; they do not cry after pretty colors, or stretch out their hands to a candle. And the men have no apparent desire to better their lot. They go on just as their fathers did; submit to the imposition of the whites, a little sullenly, but with no though of rebellion, unless there is a white or half-breed to lead them. The children do not care much for playthings; we rarely see one with a rag doll; the little boys delight in bows and arrows, but they take them as a part of their trainiug. Sometimes the people have dances, in imitation of the festa sports; and we hear them humming the waltzes and quadrilles which their quick ears have caught from the musicians. As an Indian will paddle steadily all day, while his wife at home hardly ceases her monotonous cotton-beating, so the little oues have an inexhaustible gift of patience. Where a white child would fret and cry, the brown one sits al day, perfectly still, but watching everything around him. To see a-lit-tle Indian boy in a canoe, you would say that nothing of him was alive but his eyes.— Herald and Preabteyr.