The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-06-27
CONTINUED from yesterday
SAVAGE CUSTOMS OR INITIA-
TONS.

TIONS.
If we are going to add another night
mare to the already much-harassed
adolescent, we are hardly more hui
manitarian than the savage tribes Mr..
Stanley Hall enumerates in his excel
lent work on adolescence" which, by
the way, every adult should take the
time to acquaint himself with. The
coming of age among savage tribes is
uniformly regarded as the great event
The initiation rites which are merci-
lessly enforced are often cruel in the
extreme. The girls are secluded Or inn
prisoned for days, months, or years,
varying with different tribes, and de-
family; fasting and unremittent work
being leading features during this
period, which are intended to awaken
the intuitive faculties. Then there are
any number of other cruelties inflicted,
some as severe as those used with the
boys. The more wealth the family
represents, the longer is the period of
probation or publication.
The boys are subjected to all manner
of trying ordeals in regard to physical
endurance of pain, which are intended
to test their worthinesS as coming men
and warriors-vulcanizin their bodies
against any possible weakness there
after. Different tribes vary in these
practices, but with all this coming of
age is the great solemn ceremony of
initiation, accompanied by various
hardening processes of the body to in
sure health and strength embracing
endless details that cannot find space
here.
Among the Aztecs two ancient doc
containing some of a fathers
teaching to his son, and5 that of a
mother to her daughter, constitute an
admirable code of morals and man
ners, which, with a few changes in de-
tail, would be helpful in any land and
age," according to Lucien Biart.
In the civilized state of the present
there is perhaps too little stress laid
upon the hardening of the body" and
practical training for general useful
ness, but under the prevailing system
Of herculean intellectual requirements,
the student hardly finds time for
enough exercise to keep the body in
health, which the innumerable break
Towns from overwork will bear witness
20 every year. Our youth considers it
self greatly abused owing to these men
al tasks, but otherwise they certainly
nave a paradise in comparison with
heir savage brothers.
The greatest misery of the adolescent J
n a civilized state is the despicable !
easing habit of his elders. He is con- !
inuaIly being made conscious of his
Lbnorma1 state. every move is COM /
nented upon, his diet, his primping and
,luming, in fact, every idiosyncracy ,
eIative to this stage is made target
#, until his life, which is so filled with
newness anyway, is made
Learly unbearable.
DIET.
A few words on the very important :
ubject of Diet are apropos here. So +,
1uch is depending upon correct diet, (
specially while the body is undergoing u
UGH decided change, that it seems re-
that so little attention is p:
iven to it as whole. We all know
hat a hungry child is more liable to
ield to the temptation of stealing than {
ne well-fed. In later years the same
oIds good as a preventative in regard u
, the liquor and tobacco habits. The '
ody requires certain chemical ele- {
rents for its growth and sustenance; Il
hen these elements are not supplied {
trough the food consumed, there is an
craving for something, often