This is an excellent account of a culture which, as Ruth Benedict tells us in the foreword, 'was dying by its own hand'. The author describes a society in which the children are apparently loved too much.

'The children receive so much satisfaction from adults it is hard to see why they should bother with one another. They are at the beck and call of anyone who wants a warm little body to caress … The little children receive an enormous amount of adult attention and one never sees them caress one another or lie down together. It is impossible to keep track of children over the campfire… They like to cuddle next to an aunt, uncle or stepmother… This wandering around often culminates in a sexual experience to which the grown-ups are eager to introduce the child, and he is generally enjoyed first by a person much older than he.' Some married men have nicknames that bear a humorous reference to their experience in trying to deflower young girls. Yakwá was called 'you pierced your mother' because he had deflowered a young girl who had