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NAMBIKWARA, Nambicuara, Nambiquara(Mato Grosso, Brazil)
Lévi-Strauss (1955:p301 [1962:p277])[1] stated that children, who are
cousins, call themselves spouses. In the evening they make their own campfire
and dedicate themselves-depending on their abilities and means- to the same
love play [aux mêmes épanchements] as their elders; the adults observe the
scene with amusement. There is no formal play, however. Lévi-Strauss
(1949:p71-2)[2] had already commented on the fact
that the children enact
“[t]ous
les traveaux érotiques qu’ils ont vu leurs aînés pratiquer. L’incident est
accueilli par les adultes avec indifference, ou, au plaus, avec des sourires
amusés: […] “Ce sont des enfants qui ont de petites relations
sexuelles” , dit-on en passant. Nous n’avons verifié ces que de façon
occassionelle, chez jeunes enfants (cinq à sept ans)”.
The games appear absent in those approaching
puberty, but reliable data are not present.
One man who “caught a little boy” (pegou um
menino), was requested to leave town at least temporarily. “The boy’s only
remark was that he had not been paid” (Hutchison, 1957:p141)[3].
Fernandes
(1969:p82-3)[4] states that the urban Negro (São Paulo) learned the secrets of life
“precociously”. There was much sexual use of minors, particularly also of
boys, and children “already used each other at five and six years of age
according to informants”. Although females are subject to a puritanical sex
code, males are given “more or less a carte blanche to do as they please and
get away with as much as they can”. Virginity is valued with great intensity,
and a rigid pattern of separation and chaperonage is seen after puberty. Sex
is not generally talked about, but some mothers might (Patai, 1988:p116-7,
139-42, 154, 219-20, 288, 302)[5]. Harris (1969:p158)[6] stated that “childhood masturbation, while never deliberately
discouraged, is less likely to be methodologically prohibited in males than
in females, especially among the lower classes”. Parker (1991:p122, 123-4)[7] noted masturbation contests in jack-off clubs. Thus, “[f]rom early
childhood on, masturbation, oral eroticism, and anal eroticism, as well as
same-sex relations and any number of other deviations [sic], emerge alongside
the genital sexual norm […]”. A man relates:
“When I was maybe six years old, in groups of men, my father would
say, “You have to fuck that one there […] that one there is a woman […] you
have to fuck women […] fuck cunt […] you have to make her suck […] you have
to fuck her ass!” And the others, they would add on […]. They would give
lectures. “Take off the bra first.” “And when you’re sucking her nipple, you
take her hand and put it on your cock”. “But you’ve got to have a hard-on, to
show her that you’re a macho” (p60).
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Volume
I. World Reference Atlas. 0.2 ed.
2004. Berlin: Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology
Last
revised: Oct. 2004
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