Olmec Ceramic Baby Figurine [Object]

This baby figurine of a pudgy toddler is one of many similar examples of ceramic sculptures of infants belonging to an ancient Mesoamerican ceramic tradition that flourished during the first millennium B.C.E. The figurines are hollow and often nearly life-sized (about 25 to 35 cm, or 10 – 14 inches high), made of white kaolin clay, or ordinary clay covered with white slip. The figurines are usually without clothing, but do not show genitalia. Like others, the head of this example is oversized and seems to show artificial cranial deformation used to shape infants' heads according to cultural aesthetic standards. Their downturned mouths and adult-like, slitted eyes are seemingly symbolic. This figure has wide outstretched legs with baby-like feet, and its arm is outstretched in an open gesture. Many of these figurines display such a reaching gesture, and some are shown crawling forward. Some baby-face figurines wear a helmet-like headdress.

While the sculptures have rarely been unearthed in archaeological context, scholars associate the large figurines with early Olmec archaeological sites in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico near the Gulf coast, with other heartland areas of the Olmec culture region, and nearby areas influenced by Olmec culture. The meaning of the infant figurines is unknown. Various theories have been put forward, whereby they represent elite lineages, deities, or infant sacrifices. They may be effigies that substituted for sacrificial victims. The facial expressions resemble those of the monumental stone sculptures at San Lorenzo and La Venta, but none of the infant sculptures have been found there, possibly because the soil acid destroyed any buried remains, or because they had already gone out of use by that period.

Olmec Baby-face Figurine, 1000 - 300 BCE (Mexico: Olmec), Snite Museum of Art. Photograph available online under Creative Commons license at <a class="external" href=""> <a class="external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Olmec_baby-face_figurine,_Snite.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Olmec_baby-face_figurine,_Snite.jpg</a>. Annotated by Susan Douglass.a

Advice of an Aztec Mother to Her Daughter [Document]

Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and music. He acquired mastery of the Aztec language and collected information to help missionaries and government officials convert the indigenous people to Christianity.

The 12-volume manuscript included text, illustrations, and a grammar of the Aztec language. Completed in 1569, authorities in Spain did not want the work published in New Spain for fear of encouraging the continuation of indigenous practices. It was first published in 1829 as Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, with an English translation in 1831.

The advice given to a young daughter, likely near marriageable age, in this excerpt reflects the Aztec (Nahua) philosophy of personal balance in earthly life. Moral, psychological, and physical health related to well-being, righteousness, and purity. Compare this advice with the counsel offered to young boys. In what ways does the advice for daughters differ from that of sons, and how does each relate to the principle of balance and the dangers of earthly life?

Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia de Nueva España, Lib. VI., Cap. XIX, "Advice of an Aztec Mother to Her Daughter," in William Hickling Prescott, Wilfred Harold Munro, William Robertson, and George Ticknor, The Works of William H. Prescott (J. B. Lippincott, 1904), Appendix, Part II. (accessed March 5, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Advice of an Aztec Father to His Sons [Document]

Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and music. He acquired mastery of the Aztec language and collected information to help missionaries and government officials convert the indigenous people to Christianity.

The 12-volume manuscript included text, illustrations, and a grammar of the Aztec language. Completed in 1569, authorities in Spain did not want the work published in New Spain for fear of encouraging the continuation of indigenous practices. It was first published in 1829 as Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, with an English translation in 1831.

The document illustrates elements in the socialization of boys, whose way of life and culture by the time of Sahagún had been irrevocably altered by Spanish rule. It also illustrates the importance of respect for elders, and the refinements of rhetoric in the language of the Aztecs (Nahua). The advice given to the son reflects the Aztec (Nahua) philosophy of keeping personal balance in earthly life. Moral, psychological, and physical health, were related to well-being, righteousness, and purity. Compare the father's advice about duty, public behavior, and moral responsibility to his son with the mother's advice to her daughter. In what ways does the advice for daughters differ from that of sons?

Download the full text of the document as pdf here.

Bernardino de Sahagún (translated by Charles E. Dribble and Arthur J.O. Anderson), Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 6—Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, Chapter 22 (Santa Fe: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1954), excerpts from pages 105-106; 121-126. (accessed February 15, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

How the Aztec (Nahua) Raised Sons as Warriors [Document]

Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún recorded this text in the mid-16th century as part of an effort to gather information about native Aztec history and customs. Sahagún went to Mexico in 1529 as one of the first missionaries assigned to the newly conquered territory of New Spain. He remained there until his death, preaching and instructing youth in Spanish, Latin, science, religion, and music. He acquired mastery of the Aztec language and collected information to help missionaries and government officials convert the indigenous people to Christianity.

The 12-volume manuscript included text, illustrations, and a grammar of the Aztec language. Completed in 1569, authorities in Spain did not want the work published in New Spain for fear of encouraging the continuation of indigenous practices. It was first published in 1829 as Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España with an English translation in 1831.

The document illustrates elements in the socialization of boys who were among the nobility, whose way of life and culture by the time of Sahagún had been irrevocably altered by Spanish rule and the influence of the Catholic missionaries. Other passages in this book of the Florentine Codex refer to values such as chastity for boys as well as girls, the civic duties and roles of a ruler, and other personal virtues.

Download the full text of the document as pdf here.

Bernardino de Sahagún (translated by Charles E. Dribble and Arthur J.O. Anderson), Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 8—Kings and Lords, Chapter 21 (Santa Fe: School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1954), excerpt from pages 75-77. (accessed February 2, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Aztec Cradleboard Figurine and Drawing [Object]

The ceramic figurine of an infant in a cradle (also called a cradleboard) was created by the Nahua, or Aztec people of Mexico, between 1350 and 1521 CE. It shows how infants were kept bound in a cradle or carried on a cradleboard, a practice that was common among the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The figurine also shows how the baby would have been bound or swaddled in the cradle. The drawing further illuminates the way in which the cradle was used, and may illustrate a ceremony of placing the child in the cradle that took place some days after the birth of the child. The illustration is from the work collected in the Nahua language by Bernardino de Sahagún (1500-1590 CE), a Church official sent by the Spanish to Mexico in 1529. Sahagún collected information about Aztec language, rituals, values, and childrearing from a select group of native informants. It is the only source of its kind of Aztec customs and modes of thought. Also compiled by Sahagún was a narrative and representations of the Spanish conquest. The work was sent to Spain where it was not published until 1829 or translated until 1831. It was called The Florentine Codex because the manuscript was found in that city; it had been suppressed in Spain after the death of Sahagún.

Ceramic figurine of a baby and cradleboard, Aztec, circa AD 1350–1521), Mexico The Field Museum, 2475-241028, © 2007 The Field Museum, A114597_04Bd, Photographer John Weinstein; FM_ 241028; drawing from Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) (Anderson, Arthur J. O., and Charles E. Dibble, translators). The Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1982. Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Peruvian Youth Center for Child Laborers [Video Stills]

The photographs of a twelve-year-old Peruvian fruit market porter named Jonathan are from a video produced by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), a trade union organization affiliated with the International Labour Organization (ILO). The documentary describes Jonathan, who is one of a large group of similarly employed boys, who rise before dawn and spend their days pushing carts and carrying crates of fruit. Their pay is meager and not all clients are dependable. Jonathan is quite articulate in expressing his acceptance of the need to work and his willingness to contribute to his own support and to help his family. His wages are his own income, and also pay his school expenses. The trade union organizations in Peru, as in other countries, support efforts to end or ameliorate child labor that depresses wages and degrades working conditions by providing a weak and pliant alternative labor force of minors. According to ILO statistics, nearly one-third of Peruvian children engage in paid work, some of it dangerous, and much of it detrimental to their physical development and education. The documentary describes an association of four main Peruvian trade unions called "Warma Tarinakuy," which established a youth center where child laborers can get cheap meals, counseling and remedial classes if they have fallen behind in school. Anyone who wishes to participate must commit to staying in school. The math teacher featured in the documentary was a child worker himself. Association counselors work with children and their parents to maximize their chances of finishing school and limiting the damage to the development of youth by trying to reduce the families’ reliance on their labor. Jonathan’s progress as a student is discussed, including his award of a grant to study computer science. This effort by a combination of international and local organizations may be compared with other efforts in Asia and Africa to end child labor by bringing services to the places where children work and live.

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Camera: Ivan Castañeda, Director: Laurent Duvillier, <a class="external" href="http://www.icftu.org/www/video/perou_infantile_en.wvx">http://www.icftu.org/www/video/perou_infantile_en.wvx</a>; ICFTU article at <a class="external" href="http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991224579&Language=EN">http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991224579&Language=EN</a> (accessed February 22, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor at La Rinconada [Photograph]

This photograph is of a boy between 6-10 years of age who works in the La Rinconada gold mine in the mountainous region of Peru. La Rinconada is the highest gold mine in the world, 5,500 meters above sea level in the Andes, and under a glacier, and its camp is populated by about 20,000 people who live under economically exploitative and impoverished conditions. The boy seen here works as a quimbalatero, or stone crusher, who quarries ore from gold-bearing rocks by striking them with a heavy hammer.

The image was taken as documentation of child labor by a photographer for the International Labour Organization (ILO) for its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) project. According to ILO definitions, unacceptable types of child labor are those that can be harmful to physical and mental development, to children’s dignity, and of a kind that “deprives children of their childhood.” Such child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work so as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively. Mining work such as this meets the criteria as harmful because it exposes child workers to hazards of extreme cold, is physically demanding, and provides no protection for their eyes and hands. Children in mining camps are routinely exposed to mercury poisoning in so-called “artisanal mines,” family mining operations in which whole families are employed, sometimes including toddlers. Such operations often produce tiny amounts of gold by quarrying flakes from large quantities of rock, bringing in very little income for the expense in time and toxic exposure.

A recent ILO Global Report "The end of child labor: Within reach" published in 2006 showed that Latin American and Caribbean countries have experienced declining numbers of child laborers. Projects such as Bolsa Familia in Brazil offers families financial incentives to send their children to school, in addition to citing employers who exploit children, and educating parents and older children on the hazards of child labor. The number of children at work in the region has fallen by two-thirds, with just 5 percent of children now engaged in unsatisfactory child labor. The IPEC project in La Rinconada works to help families access health, education, and nutrition services, and to address working conditions for adults in the mines.

Photograph by E. Gianotti, "La Rinconada child crushing gold-bearing rocks," International Labour Organization (ILO), Peru 1999 at <a class="external" href="http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=384&p_lang=en">http://www.ilo.org/dyn/media/mediasearch.fiche?p_id=384&p_lang=en </a>(accessed January 22, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Piñata [Object]

A piñata is a decorated container of paper or clay that contains sweets, small toys, fruits, and nuts. It is the object of a game played in Mexico at children's birthday parties and at Christmas celebrations, in which blindfolded children take turns trying to break the piñata with a stick to release the treats.

Yet the piñata has a long history. Piñatas are typically made of paper-mâché, and are attributed to China where paper originated. Marco Polo is believed to have seen Chinese paper figures of bulls and other animals covered with colored paper and filled with seeds. When struck with a stick, the seeds spilled out. As part of the ritual, the paper creation was then burned and its ashes gathered for good luck. Polo likely brought the idea to Italy, where by the 14th century it was associated with celebration of Lent, and acquired the Italian name pignatta or "fragile pot." This custom spread to Spain in subsequent centuries, but involved a clay pot called la olla, derived from a colloquial Arabic word for a terracotta water jug. Paper decorations and ribbons were wrapped around the pot to make it festive.

Missionaries brought the custom to New Spain, where it encountered a similar tradition. To honor the Aztec god of war, a decorated, filled pot was broken in the temple at the feet of the god's statue. Catholic missionaries employed the colorful piñata custom to teach Christian religion. A traditional Mexican shape for piñatas is a spherical shape with seven conical points symbolizing the seven deadly sins—greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, envy, wrath, and lust. Inside the piñata, however, were tempting sweets and treats, representing the pleasures of life. The person wielding the stick of virtue represents faith, which can defeat evil, and the treats represented the hope of reward.

This symbolic piñata became traditional at Christmas, and is shown here. Today, piñatas come in the shape of animals, cars, and cartoon characters. Making piñatas for children's parties is a major industry, especially since the custom continued to spread around the world.

Photograph (top) Victor Ancheta, "Christmas Piñata," Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/victorancheta/2167074229/in/photostream/; (bottom) Katia Lopez-Hodoyan, "Piñata: Party's Game Is Ancient History," La Prensa San Diego, February 6, 2004, http://www.laprensa-sandiego.org/archieve/february06-04/pinata.htm; Wendy Devlin, "History of the Piñata," Mexconnect, http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/459 (accessed January 26, 2010). Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Mummified Inca Child Sacrifices [Archaeology]

The top photograph shows the mummified remains of the 15-year-old Inca child, known as the "Llullaillaco Maiden," who was sacrificed with two other children, a boy of seven years old, shown in the photograph below, and a six-year-old girl, whose mummy had been struck by lightning and was charred. The children had walked or been brought to the top of Mt. Llullaillco, in northern Argentina, elevation 22,000 feet (6706 meters), a volcano near the Chilean border today. According to archaeologists and cultural historians, the children were victims of a sacrificial ritual called capacocha. The children were chosen for their beauty and possibly nobility, honored by their selection, and well-fed and cared for before their ritual deaths. According to Inca beliefs, such children were to serve as guardians over their villages from the heights of the mountains, joining the ancestors and honored in death. Before their deaths, they had participated in ceremonies at Cuzco, possibly walking hundreds of miles. They were taken to the top of Mt. Llullaillaco. Their deaths may have been painless, as they were given chicha, a strong alcoholic beverage made from maize. The older girl had pieces of coca leaves on her mouth. They would have fallen asleep from intoxication before they were placed in burial niches where they froze to death in the thin air.

The children wore shoes or slippers as well as colorful clothing elaborately decorated with metal, bone, and cords. The children were not wrapped into bundles, but loosely wrapped in shawls. They sat cross-legged or crouched as they would have fallen asleep. The older girl’s face, which showed red ochre markings, was creased from the place it rested on her shawl. The girl’s long hair was plaited into fine braids that are still fully intact. Among the artifacts placed with them were figurines donning headdresses decorated with colorful bird feathers.

Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana, Salta, Argentina, http://www.maam.org.ar/?seccion=expoperm&seccion2=ninos&nroimagen=6 and http://www.maam.org.ar/?seccion=expoperm&seccion2=ninos&nroimagen=8. Annotated by Susan Douglass.

Child Labor in Domestic Service by Gender [Chart]

The chart shows the proportion of male and female child laborers between the ages of 5 and 14 who are engaged in domestic work for third-party households. As the note on the chart indicates, only those countries in the data sample of 16 nations where domestic work could be distinguished from other kinds of work are featured in this chart. The sixteen sample countries included in the chart were based on nationally representative household surveys conducted between 1999 and 2007. The data comes from a study IPEC Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (SIMPOC). (Geneva, ILO, 2009). The sample countries and the dates of data in the survey were Colombia (2001), Ecuador (2006), El Salvador (2001), Guatemala (2006), Burkina Faso (2006), Malawi (2002), Mali (2005), Senegal (2004), Cambodia (2001), Mongolia (2002), Philippines (2001), Sri Lanka (1999), Azerbaijan (2005), Kyrgyzstan (2007), Turkey (2006) and Ukraine (1999).

Domestic work includes housekeeping, such as: cleaning, cooking, washing, fetching supplies, and child care. Domestic work for an employer in a third-party household is considered by experts to be among the worst forms of child labor. Children, and especially girls, are often isolated in the household and invisible to others. Reports of abuse are frequent, but much abuse remains out of the public eye. Such children are often given up to other families because of their parents' inability to care for them. Children's earnings are sometimes given over to the person who contracted them through an agent or relative.

Data from the surveys show that while the vast majority of child domestic workers are girls, boys are also subjected to sexual abuse. The primary source text from Ecuador is typical of such stories gleaned by social workers and NGO's from work with children who escape or are removed from such situations.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) established the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in 1992 with the goal of eliminating child labor. For statistical purposes, a child is considered to be involved in child labour under the following classification: (a) children 5-11 years of age who did at least one hour of economic activity or at least 28 hours of domestic work during the week preceding the survey, and (b) children 12-14 years of age who did at least 14 hours of economic activity or at least 28 hours domestic work during the week preceding the survey. Whether or not particular forms of "work" can be called "child labor" depends on the child's age, the type and hours of work performed, the conditions under which it is performed and the objectives pursued by individual countries.

IPEC classifies acceptable and unacceptable types of child labor. Acceptable work includes children helping parents around the home, earning pocket money after school and on holidays, and even helping in a family business. Such activity is viewed as beneficial to children's development and socialization. Unacceptable child labor, in contrast, is harmful to physical and mental development, to children's dignity, and "deprives children of their childhood." Child labor should be eliminated if it is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children; if it interferes with their schooling by preventing them from attending school, obligates them to leave school prematurely, or requires excessively long and heavy work as to compromise children's ability to attend school or learn effectively.

"World Day 2009: Give girls a chance: End child labour," International Labour Organization, http://www.ilo.org/ipec/Campaignandadvocacy/WDACL/WorldDay2009/lang--en/index.htm (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass. Text from IPEC: Girl child labour in agriculture, domestic work and sexual exploitation: Rapid assessments on the cases of the Philippines, Ghana and Ecuador (Geneva, ILO, 2004), cited in "Give girls a chance: Tackling child labour, a key to the future," International Labour Office, p. 27. (accessed November 2, 2009). Annotated by Susan Douglass.