CHILD REARING AMONG THE ABAGUSII COMMUNITY

INTRODUCTION
Gusii culture as a set of ideals and prototypes that continue to influence the experience and behavior of Gusii parents and children, can be characterized by its domestic model of social concept of avoidance as essential to morality
Children were born into and grew up in a physical environment rich in the norms and models that will guide them throughout the life course. The initiated men who were unmarried spent much of their time away from the homestead along with the young men from neighboring homesteads of the same riiga (localized partrilineage) in a cattle camp(egesarate)where they jointly grazed their father’s herds and defended them against raids by other Gusii class.
Each role, each state and transition in life was defined by assigned and forbidden spaces and by customary action performed in those spaces using traditional objects. The code of conduct for the homestead served as the prototype for social norms outside the homestead. The domestic group itself was divided into generations such that one acted in a restrained manner prescribed by the avoidance taboos(chinsoni) with one’s own parents and children but in a in-relaxed and familiar manner with one’s brother and sisters and grandparents and grandchildren; is applied to others of their generation and carried with them the appropriate norms of restraint or familiarity.

GUSII SICIETY AS A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
IN pre-colonial Gusii society like most of indigenous Africa, there were no schools that there are no institutions dedicated to instructions. Only the annual male and female initiation ceremonies, specifically the period of several weeks during which newly circumcised boys and girls were secluded (separately) provided an occasion dedicated to training: older teenagers instructed the notice in the code of gender appropriate adult conduct, with an emphasis on sexual information that could not be publicly discussed. This event happening once in a person’s life during puberty in pre-colonial times and some what earlier seven to eight for girls, ten to eleven for boys from the 1940’s onward constructed a dramatic personal transition but it was regarded as the completion of his or her education on the assumption that the person had already been educated at home.

INFANCY
Infancy in Gusii can be characterized as the period between birth and weaning.When the greatest amount of attention is paid to their needs and the least effort directed toward their trainins.Health and survival of the child are the source of exiety for the parents,although this is not apparent until the child actually becomes ill.When an infant developes a diaorrheathat lasts several days the mother becomes worried and calls a medicine man (omonyamariogo)to adiminister portions orally and makes incisions on yhe child,s body.Payment may be a goat or a substituitio of the measure of the mther,s decision
Infants are particularly susceptible to the “evil eye” (okobiriria) not because they are young but because their skin is still brown and therefore delicate.Although nowadays its nolonger in place.When a child is infected small things near the child appear:grains,feathers,wool of blankets.If not removed in time,may kill the child.This evil is thought to be brought by Kipsigis women into the wives when there was a fight in Kipsigis.
When the child is infected,the parents rup his whole body wiyh clarified butter which is thought to removethe harmful materials.This process is called(okongura) must be done without talking about the evil eye.
The lack of strength and mother control manifested by all infants is attributed is put to thir (hot blood)which makes them weak and fearful of a cold environment.The only medicines used to facilitate growth are herbs given to infants during the first three months of their life to promote growth of teeth.


WEANING.
Takes place in the second and third years of life of the Gusii child. Weaning begins within two months of the time the mother discovers herself to be pregnant due to the fear that the milk may cause diarrhea or milk may be finished for the coming child.

METHODS OF WEANING

The word weaning is known as “Ogotacha”Which literally means to stamp or to step on. To stop the children from sucking used bitter substances; pepper, goat dung, juice from sour fruits on the nipples, slapping the child, burn his mouth with caustic plant juice, ignoring his cries in the day time and wearing a dress that prevents access to the breasts sending him to live with the grandmother. Giving him large amounts of solid food to make him forget the breast. The child who lives with the grandmother, for a few months during weaning is usually fed a great deal and receives much murturant attempt from her.
TOILET TRAINING AND RESPONSIBILITY.
This is an important event which takes place shortly after the birth of a younger sibling is training in sphincter control. The aim of this is to teach the child to defecate in bush by pasture some distance from the house. Urination control is the second consideration. The approximate average age for this training at 26.7 months. First the mother takes the child to uncultivated pasture near the house several times to show him the procedure.
Secondly, canes him of not following the instructions.Thirdly.the child is punished for defecating in the house even at night for he is supposed to do it day time or wake up somebody to accompany him outside at night. The amount of time the mother trains a child ranges between one week to a year but the majority one month. Proper habits concerning urination though not stressed seriously as early as bowel control are acquired by the child gradually as an adjustment of bowel and modesty training.
The period between 18 months and 3 years is one of severe punishment for the child’s infertile dependency behavior and there are beginnings of new behaviour part tens in his learning simple tasks and his orientation towards other children who he is now forced to interact more than when he was oriented towards the mother.
CHILDHOOD 3-8 YEARS.
This is the period in the life if the child from the year following his replacement by a young sibling to the time when the boy begins sleeping outside of his mother’s house and they prepare for their initiation. The period between 3 to 8 years is uninterrupted by school for hardly any Gusii child attend school.

STATUS OF THE CHILD.

The training of the child in the proper patterns of behavior takes place largely in the years between weaning and initiation. Although some of the improper behaviour of the adults are portrayed up to the time of initiation. The child is expected to show signs of his readiness by some adult-like behavior beforehand and this must be taught during childhood. the initiation of girls take place early between age 8-9 because they are said to mature early while boys it takes 10-15 years until initiation the girl is called (egesagane) and the boy is called (omoisia) which reveres as uncircumcised boy or girl. After weaning however.itis not too long before the child is at the back and call of everyone around with no one younger or more inferior for him to order about.
Indeed adults see in the behavior of individual children foreshadowing of their adult character; a trouble child will become bad while an obedient and respectful one will become good person.
SLEEPING AND EATING
Sleeping for the Gusii family is early in the evening except when there is a party going on. During this time the children are allowed to stay up during the progress of the party in the house but younger children are go to sleep early while the infants sleep in the hands of the mother.One or two of the children are usually buddle close to the mother especially when the traditional slightly raise hide corsed bed, dried mud bed is used. Nights in Gusii are so cold and it is customary to sleep naked under blankets not far from the cooking fire which burns the whole night.
The Gusii mother is considered to provide food as their primary responsibility to their children and there is evidence that food constitutes an important symbolic bond between the children and the mother.
Meal time situation provides some important lessons in the rules of the family behavior for the Gusii child. The father is served in a different pot and his food is not touched by anybody until when he takes the food and then the remains can be taken by the children. Greed children are punished by being served in a different pot and it may be small or others finish and are served again.

CLEANLINESS AND CLOTHING.
The Abagusii in general bathe infrequently and the children are not excemption.Mothers take little interest in their cleanliness as though they encourage them to bathe at the stream with their siblings and friends of the same sex.Boys who are herding cattle sometimes take off their shirts and splash around water; Girls copying their nubile sisters are somewhat more systematic about washing but do not appear to be very clean until they are initiated.
Although cleanliness is not stressed, the child learns a set of attitudes about the body at an early age. By the time the child is at the age of 3 years, he or she knows the parts of the body and he has also learnt that his parents give different names for some of these then his siblings of the same sex.the parents call the penis a tail when his friends use coarse expressions. By the age of the children have an extensive obsesses vocable lay and a euphemistic one and they have learnt that only the latter may be used in the presence of the adults.
With the respect of dress modesty is more stressed for girls than for boys Girls wear a garment which no matter how fatted covers them from the knee to navel and usually the neck as well.
When a girl wearing a dress and sitting so as to expose her genitals her mother yells and orders her to sit properly. Boys in the other hand may wear clothes which do not cover their genitals until initiation that is until ten or twelve years. They usually wear pullover shirts with long tails that reach to mid thigh.
For both boys and girls dressing involves putting a garment over the head and slipping arms and head into appropriate opening.
RELATIONSHIP TO MOTHER

Mothers have the responsibility for caring and training of all her uninitiated children. They live in the house are fed by her and look to her support and protection. If her child gets into mischief at another homestead she must face the adults of that homestead. The burden for this responsibility is even greater for widows and women whose husbands are working outside the district.
Despite the almost solitary responsibility of the mother for her children and the striking soldierly of the mother. Child unit against outsiders, Gusii mothers are overburdened with an agricultural and domestic work load which limits the attention they ca pay for their weaned children. With the exception of the older uncircumcised boy and those who go to school most children spread at least half of the day within shouting distance for the mother.
Mothers do not play with their children as the display of affection for them openly. The mother-child relationship is relatively informal allowing the most relaxed interaction between persons of adjacent generations that can be found in the Gusii social system.
SOCIALIZATION
To train children and control their behavior the mother uses fear more frequently than reward. The small child who annoys his mother by crying at night is warned ‘if you don’t stop crying, I shall open the door and call hyena to come and eat you’This helps to keep the child alarmed and disciplined with good behavior.
The method of punishment used by mothers are caning i.e. beating on the legs and buttocks with a tall weld or thin branch depriving of food reprimanding, chasing from the house overnight labor chores.
RELATIONSHIP TO SIBLINGS AND PEERS
The interaction of the child in Gusii takes place within conditions set for him by his mother. There are numerous restrictions on the extent of this association, restrictions which are gradually relaxed as the child grows older. Parents discouraged association with children who fight within the limits set by the mother the place where the child spends most of his daytime depends a good deal on whether family has cattle. This narrow range of friendship and association even for boys who herd cattle is reflected in them. Somewhat exclusive and suspicious attitude toward outsiders. Adult supervisions of children is impossible for much of the day since adults are often too far away to keep an eye on the young ones.

ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN’S GROUPS.
The first and the largest group is that of herding cattle whereby the young boys are water herd by the adults. The boys takes the cattle very early in the morning after milking and returns home in the rate evening.In the fields the mother sends food to them and the girl who takes this food eats with them. When the boys are grazing there are less activities to do and they leave the cows to go to somebody’s garden.
The other activities away from the stream include climbing trees and trying to shoot birds with homemade sling shots. Other times the older boys jokingly insult a younger one in the same way or shoot a stone at him with his slingshot in order to provide a tassel.
A group of children which gathers in a different part of Gusii is much more amorphous and variable in its composition.Some of the children are associated mainly with siblings and one or two cousins’ interaction tends to be even less animated.

THE CONTROL OF AGGRESSION.
Parental control its implementation and evasion is a factor of primary importance in the aggressive and sexual behavior patterns of Gusii children. Mothers play an active part in the part in the resolution of aggressive encounters within children’s groups
The Gusii mother: to discourage aggressive habits in their children and to protect them from the aggressive of others, the most frequent response of mothers to physical aggression against other children by canning. Attacking one’s own sibling is not considered as a bad as doing the same to outsiders. Mothers do not try to fight every battle for their children. A child who complains to his mother of being insulted and verbally abused by peers may well be told to retaliate in kind particularly if the children are of the same age
RELATIONSHIP TO FATHER
Children do not have the intensive contact with their father that they do with their mothers. The father is always at home but leaves all the workload of caring children to the mother. The father is viewed by his child as an awesome and frightening person and with some justification. Father does not play with, fondler or praise their children and unlike mother, they do not feed them or comfort them when hurt fathers are more severe and inflexible disciplinarians than mothers
.
RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER ADULTS.
The relation of the Gusii child to other adults other than parents as for the most part explicitly patterned after the mother-child and father-child relationships, although less intense in form. Children are thought to respect all persons of the parental generation and they may be chastised by such adults who catch them misleading. Adults usually feel animal responsibility of reporting a child’s observed misbehavior if serious to hi parents. Grand parents initiates sexual joking with young children and insult including sexual abuse, flow back and forth between them in a manner which is almost related a start of age. The grand parents are observed of not punishing the children.

Training in obedience, responsibility and skills.

The good child as viewed by the Gusii parents is obedient child who does what the parents tell him without question. Obedience is considered to be the key to success in the contemporary settings and parents state that the child selected to attend school is obedient and who will do what the teacher tell him and therefore make progress in school. The training of boys in heading by their father and older siblings begins at the early age. Three year old girls are thought to carry small cans of water from the river to the house on their heads with grass rings support.
THE CONTROL OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR
The sex play of children elicits even greater disapproval than fighting Gusii parents. The children who were found having masturbation or heterosexual are punished. The Gusii women are aware that there is secret heterosexual activity in the pastures when they sing to the girls at their initiation” you have been the wives of the uncircumcised boys: they are alluding to this activity.

TRAINING IN OBEDIENCE, RESPONSIBILITY AND SKILLS
The good child as viewed by the Gusii parents is obedient child who does what the parent tells him invariably without question. Obedience is considered to be the key to success in the contemporary setting and parents states that the child selected to attend school is the obedient who will do what the teachers tell him and thereby make progress in school.
The training of boys in herding by their father and older siblings begins at earlier age. Three year old girls are taught not to carry small pans of water from the river to the house on their heads with grass-rings supports. Girls of 7& 8 years old are usually so apprehensive of maternal punishment that they are after dropping a pot. Both boys and girls as young as three years old have been observed helping their mothers hoe a field for a shot period of time.

INITIATION
This makes the transitional stage from childhood to adulthood. In the Gusii community both boys and girls undergoes this stage
The initiation always take place during the month of December. It is the girl who decide when she would undergo initiation but in most cases the mother decide for them. Most girls want to be initiated into because the ceremonies themselves are attractive but because they desire to live the status of “little girl” (egesagane) and enter that of (anyaroka) little means and uncircumcised girl or (omoseke) and which means un married lady there are three components to the girl conscious desire for initiation : the first is that she wants to put behind the task and chores of childhood and assume those of un adult female.
REFERENCE:
LeVine, R. A., & Lloyd, B. B. (1966). Nyansongo a Gusii community in Kenya. Six cultures series, v. 2. New York: Wiley. LeVine, R. A. (1994). Child care and culture lessons from Africa. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge