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

by Alexander Francis Chamberlain

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 Näglein besteckt;
Morgen früh, 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.