Twelve neonatal observations, 93 tests of later infant development using Bayley and Knobloch-Pasamanick scales and 12 four-hour observations of child-rearing practices were recorded among the Zinacanteco Indians of Southeastern Mexico. These isolated Mayan descendants seem to bear quiet, alert infants who are fitted to the quieting child-rearing practices to which they are exposed in their mothers’ rebozos. The belly cinch, the rebozo, covered faces and frequent breast feedings to quiet the infant produce imitative, non-exploratory infants who develop in a slightly delayed (about one month) but parallel fashion to infants in the United States in motor, mental and social parameters. The parallel progress, despite a very different kind of child-rearing stimulation, is evidence of a ‘time-table’ in the development of milestones in infancy. This different but nurturing environment produces strong, adequate, imitative children who may show subtle differences from North American children in cognitive tasks, but who are well adapted to their society, in which conformity and unquestioning fulfillment of roles necessary to marginal survival are at a premium, as opposed to the individuality and independent exploration fostered in children in this country. The role of the infant who is presented to the environment in shaping this environment’s response to him is discussed. The intrauterine conditions of (1) subclinical malnutrition, (2) frequent infection, (3) mild hypoxia of high altitude are suggested as powerful influences on the neonate’s behavior.

Keywords:
Infancy, Behavioral development, Neonatal tests, Child rearing, Anthropology, Mexican, Indians
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© 1972 S. Karger AG, Basel
1972
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