The psychology of youth / by Edgar James Swift.

  • Edgar James Swift
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The psychology of youth / by Edgar James Swift. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    interesting study of the games of the North Ameri¬ can Indians. No sport is so delightful to boys in the country and small towns, where land enough is available, as digging caves in which to conceal themselves from other boys or from which they may make sorties on neighboring orchards. The spoils of their raids are brought to their retreat with great glee and secrecy, perhaps in time to rot and be thrown away; but that does not matter. It was the fun of seizure, not the fruit, that they wanted. Three boys, whom the writer knows, dig a large and deep hole in one of their gardens every fall. The top is covered with boards and a secret under¬ ground passage leads to the cavern. This passage is not long enough to afford any real concealment, but such is the deception of play. This cave is the winter rendezvous of the boys, and the coal cars of a railroad near by afford a never-failing source of fuel for the cave fire. A group of boys, in age from ten to twelve, with whom the writer camped one summer, found keen delight in building wigwams out of the branches of trees, and in making a “one-night shelter” by bending down a small tree and piling branches around it so as to protect their heads and bodies from the “rain,” while their feet were kept warm by means of a small camp-fire.
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