Munroe (1964:p68-9)[1]:
"Little modesty training or
sex training is imposed upon the pre-school Carib
child. Both boys and girls up to three years are commonly seen wearing shirts
only or no clothes at all. Between three and five, children are generally
seen fully clothed except in their own houses or yards, but little insistence
is placed upon this. Carib children freely use the Carib words for the genitalia, intercourse, and
excrement. They are not punished for masturbation, nor
for sexual play (to our knowledge). Carib children do
not appear to engage widely in either of these activities, but are almost
certainly not curbed."
"Adolescent girls are kept
busy near the house, but do form friendships with age-mates. With these
friends, the girls may attend dances or an occasional movie, but they more
usually meet and talk on the main street in the early evenings while shopping
and walking about. The boys, at this age, are seen wandering about, bathing
in the sea, attending movies, or standing on a corner talking to each other
and to the passing girls. Their freedom is nearly complete by the time they
have completed school; little or no control is exercised over them. Although
these adolescent boys spend a great deal of time together, we have strong
evidence against any homosexuality being present[2]".
Taylor (1951:p93-4)[3]:
"Adults and children alike
employ euphemisms when referring to their natural functions, thus: asisiha, "to shake the rattle (sísira),"
for áraga, "to urinate"; abaha, "to fetch or help oneself to fire," for ámuragua, "to evacuate the bowels"; and akuliruha, "to wiggle the buttocks" (cf.
Spanish culear), for aliagua,
"to copulate." However, there is no prudishness with regard to
masculine nudity. Boys up to the age of puberty and beyond will take off
their clothes and run about naked (surusu) on the
beach, while even grown men rarely hesitate to remove their clothing in
women's presence when and where this suits their convenience. Girls and women
are more bashful. [...] Both boys and girls may be beaten by their parents
for various offences; perhaps because their fathers are so much away from
home, the former are indulged and left to their own devices much more than
the latter. It is rare to see boys and girls playing together, even before
the age of puberty; but it is not particularly uncommon to come across a
couple of lads of thirteen or fourteen lying under a coconut tree on the
beach in full daylight, and masturbating one another with apparent unconcern
for the passers-by. Only on one occasion did a man, noticing that this
spectacle was being observed, take a stick and start after the culprits. The
boys jumped up and ran off laughing, their pants in their hands. Perhaps more
significant is the fact that in Puerto Barrios, in the course of an hour's
walk between five and six in the evening, one couple and further on a group
of three grown men were observed engaged in the same pursuit. There are a
great many more Carib men than Carib
women in Barrios. It is only assumed that these men were Caribs;
but all informants were agreed that the young Carib
female is as a rule much less accessible than either her Creole or her Ladino
sisters of like economic class."