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 ê·rem-tâg·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 Káto 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, cañons, 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).